The Long War
by Someone Else Took My Name
Summary: Takeru's walked a thousand roads across a thousand universes. In this world, he avoided the draft through the Kagami family's influence and was given a spot in an underground complex. Funny thing is, he doesn't quite feel like holing up in a shelter for years on end. The war is long and the BETA relentless, but that makes him no less willing to fight. AU, AT, Gen, Action
1. Intro Arc, C1

**AN**

Story contains some timeline shenanigans, and some events have been moved around chronologically. If you wanna see the full list of changes, check out chapter two.

* * *

 _November 24, 1978_

Five months. It had been exactly five months since the BETA set up their first hive on Japanese soil. It had been five months since Takeru had gone underground into the massive underground shelter Sumika's for amily had reserved. Five months since he'd seen the sun, let alone walked to school. It had been five months of isolation, spent with Sumika and her family- the few of them that managed to reach the place before BETA overran the mainland.

Despite being an underground complex several hundred meters below the earth, the shelter was comfortable. Extremely so. Sumika's family had been wealthy, if not exactly influential, and had cut no corners when it came to their own safety. There was plenty of food to spare, and there was no shortage of variety. The furnishings were lavish and beautiful; far more luxurious than anything he'd ever had before. And all the concrete was hidden behind tastefully decorated walls of paneled wood and lacquered ornaments.

A better life, a more comfortable life, far surpassing his old one before the BETA. A happier life.

But, it was also an empty life.

Ayamine, Sakaki, Yoroi, Tamase, hell, even _Marimo-chan_ , they'd all been drafted into the war. Sumika was his best friend, his closest friend, and that would never change. But all the same, he couldn't tell himself with absolute certainty that his staying here was for the best. Knowing that his friends were fighting and he wasn't, knowing that they were in danger and he was here, behind the thickest of walls, it bothered him.

Takeru's nights were restless, his days monotonous. His mind was always on the outside, on the BETA, on his friends. He knew that Sumika was bothered by it, that she was worried, and he knew that he should put on a tougher face for her sake. It wasn't as if he wanted her to worry about him, dammit, but no matter how he tried to square away his concerns, they would always show on his face.

When he looked in the mirror, he noticed that he'd developed a crease in his forehead. Something his mother might have called a worry wrinkle.

He tried to bury the thoughts beneath distraction. First through games, and then through literature, and finally, when all that failed, through relentless and brutal physical training. But, even if he managed to put his thoughts to something other than his friends and family, something in his subconscious refused to let go.

"I have to do something." He told himself as he awoke the next morning, almost an hour before Sumika usually came by. "If I don't get out of here soon, I think I'll go insane."

Those words were not far from the truth, he realized. Very soon, his worry would turn to fear, and fear to paranoia. He simply couldn't stand by doing nothing, because that would have been even worse than fighting.

 _I have to get out of here._

"Something has to happen." He said to no one in particular.

Unbeknownst to him, exactly a week later, his wish would be answered.

* * *

Pounding alarms. Flashing lights. These things snuck into his dreams just before Takeru awoke to the sound of a panicky voice shouting over the intercom.

 _"BETA! Oh my god, oh my god! BETA are attacking the shelter! Everyone, get to the panic room, before they burrow into the complex!"_ The voice shouted, it's owner sounding just inches from a breakdown.

His bedroom door slid open and Sumika came tearing through, tears in her eyes and pupils wide with terror.

"Takeru-chan! We have to go, now!" Before he'd so much as got to his feet, she grabbed him by the arm and wrenched him out of his bed.

He was very much undressed, only a pair of boxer shorts and a t-shirt protecting his modesty, but neither he nor she registered that as Sumika pulled him forward and ran him out the door, sprinting down the hallways and corridors like a woman possessed.

"Sumika! Sumika, slow down!" Takeru protested, still in a daze.

She shook her head vehemently. "I can't Takeru-chan! The BETA are gonna get into the shelter any minute!"

The grip on his arm was like iron, and Sumika was running at an incredible pace, but all the same, he broke free with ease. Shaking out of her grasp and digging into the wooden floor, he turned and ran in the other direction.

Sumika turned and stared after him, her widened eyes reflecting something akin to betrayal. "Takeru-chan?! Where are you going?! The panic room is this way!" Her voice was high and uneven, watery.

Takeru met her gaze from the corner of his eye. "I'm going to the armory. I have to get armed."

Sumika's jaw dropped, not in amazement, but in sheer terror. "You can't be serious?! You're not going to fight, are you?!"

He stopped and turned, looking her right in the eye with a steely glare. "This complex has exactly one TSF designated for internal defense. I'm the only one here with experience in the simulator. No one else can do this, Sumika."

"You don't have to, Takeru-chan! What if you die out there?!"

The resolution in his gaze was hot and powerful as the sun, and Sumika couldn't help but avert her gaze. "If I don't do something, we're going to die anyway."

"But-" She began.

Takeru shook his head. "We're wasting time right now, Sumika. Get to the panic room."

She bit back a protest and reluctantly turned in the other direction. "Okay, Takeru-chan. Just... if you die, I won't forgive you."

He flashed her a reassuring grin. "Wouldn't dream of it, Sumika." With that, he dug his feet into the floor, tensed his legs, and exploded back into movement, sprinting with the pace and stride of an Olympic runner.

The armory was a straight shot down one long-ass hallway. He'd reach it in time, that was certain, but his chances of reaching the _hangar_ in time to board the TSF was a fifty fifty toss up. If a Tank-class managed to bite it's way into the corridor, there would undoubtedly be several dozen just behind it; he'd be swamped and murdered, and no amount of 7.62 rounds would prevent that.

Blast doors opened to a swipe of his clearance card, and Takeru entered the armory. Rows and rows of light machine guns, being the only weapons capable of reliably killing infantry-type BETA, adorned the shelves. Several armored suits, draped onto mannequins, looked ripe for the taking as well.

 _I don't have time to put one on._ He realized. _Dammit!_

Takeru bit back his anger and panic and reached for a machine gun. The feeling of a shooting iron in his hand was surprisingly comfortable, a lot like reading an old book or putting on a worn glove. He loaded the chamber with speed and dexterity and ran back into the hallway, sprinting full speed toward the hangar.

The air in his lungs was burning, his legs were aching terribly, but no matter how his vision blurred or his heart pounded, he refused to slow down.

An electrical explosion shook the entire complex. The overhead lighting flickered and dimmed for a moment, threatening to go dark. The BETA had bitten into one of the secondary power reactors, it seemed.

"Don't you dare die on me. If the base goes dark..." He didn't want to finish the thought. If the electricity died now, they'd suffocate from lack of oxygen alone within a week, and that was if the BETA didn't get them first. Not to mention the fact that he wouldn't be able to get his TSF to start without power in the terminal.

Finally, the lighting stabilized and Takeru breathed a mental sigh of relief. It didn't last long, however, as he realized something incredibly worrying.

That digging sound was getting loud. Incredibly loud.

Gritting his teeth, Takeru redoubled his speed and hurried down the hall, knowing that if he gave into his nerves and panicked, he'd die in an instant. He turned into the left hall just as the digging turned to crunching.

 _Concrete. They're eating into the concrete._ He thought, knowing it to be certain.

A wall on his right caved outward, exploding into the corridor in a spray of splintered metal and wood. A Soldier-class, lumbering and wide, stepped into the hallway. Takeru's heart pounded, his breath shortened, and his eyes widened. Panic, delirious panic, ran through his nerves in shuddering waves.

His heartbeat was impossibly loud in his ears, even louder than it had been when he was running. The BETA turned to face him, and though it's beady eyes were black as night, Takeru could have sworn there was amusement in that expression. He nearly screamed; he _wanted_ to scream. But, somewhere deep inside him, he found that his resolve was stronger than that.

Just before it ripped his head off with it's jaws, he dove back and leveled his machine gun on it's body. His eyes were wild and his aim was shit, but it's body was huge and missing at this range was damn near impossible.

"DIE!" Takeru shouted, pulling back the trigger and spraying a deadly wave of lead. The bullets ripped through it's body with ease, pulverizing the disturbingly-human shaped body into a crimson pulp.

There was no time to celebrate. Takeru could hear the rebar in the concrete walls wrenching; BETA were just about to break into the corridor, and he could be damn sure there'd be more than just one. He was just glad that Sumika's panic room was made of tougher stuff.

Not bothering to reload his gun, he broke into another dead-sprint, tearing down the hall at a breakneck pace. The hangar was close, so damn close, and if he could just clear these last twenty meters, he'd be free and clear. But it wouldn't be that easy; massive, disturbingly _wet_ footfalls were just behind him. The BETA would overtake him at any moment now.

He came to the code-locked blast doors and cursed internally. He fumbled for his pass-card, but just before he could pull it from his pocket, the first of the BETA turned down the hall and faced him. A Warrior-class. It came running down the hall in an erratic zigzag, clearing ground in leaps and bounds.

Takeru's nerves ran hot with adrenaline, and even as his mind threatened to collapse to the rising wave of panic, the expression on his face was almost ecstatic. He brought up his machine gun and dug in, holding his ground with the rock-steady form of an experienced gunslinger. His left grabbed onto the upper stabilizing handle and his right pulled back the trigger. Lead, another deadly wave of the stuff, tore through the BETA's body despite it's evasive maneuvers.

There was an entire wave of the bastards just behind it though, and it seemed to be an endless one. Machine gun blazing, eyes squeezed shut, Takeru let loose a ceaseless barrage of bullets. He cursed mentally, again and again, as they piled into the hallway, their eviscerated corpses only serving to absorb his limited supply of rounds.

Heat bit into his hand as the gun barrel began to glow red. It would only be a matter of time before the weapon melted, or even worse, exploded.

 _I can't keep this up much longer._

Realizing this, Takeru turned his aim upward, aiming for the light fixtures. His rounds cut through with ease, and so he turned his aim to hit the structural beams in the ceiling. His lead met with the wall's steel, and after the briefest of deadlocks, the steel splintered and shattered. The wall trembled, shook, and collapsed, completely obstructing the hallway with rubble. All the same however, a single BETA, a Warrior-class, nearly completely avoided the slide of concrete and came sprinting for him.

"Shit!" Was all Takeru had time to say before the thing was on him.

He dodged to the side, avoiding it's narrow charge and brought up his gun. But when he pulled the trigger, there was not a roar of death and lead, but a dry, traitorous click instead. Undeterred by an empty gun, the Warrior-class turned and swiped, it's misshapen arm flying straight for his head.

 _"Those arms can rip a human head clear off, if given the opportunity."_ Strangely, the virtual lessons he read popped up in his head at that _exact_ moment.

He ducked low and dived to the right, throwing his machine gun into the BETA's face and pulling his access card instead. With a speedy flourish, he swiped the card through the port and opened the blast door.

Panicking and grounded, he had no other choice but to somersault into the hangar bay just before the Warrior-class' trunk-like arm could break his spine in two. But he had no time to relax as the BETA charged him again, trying to follow him into the hangar. Takeru jumped to his feet and hit the door's emergency shutdown switch, instantly bringing the steel slabs to a close, with the monster caught in the middle. With a crunch of bone, the splattered remains of the BETA's flesh covered him head to toe. The crushed arm lay on the ground, twitching and grabbing at empty air.

Takeru breathed a sigh of relief, wiping the blood off his face with trembling hands. He turned and walked down the platform, making his way to the Shiranui that had been stationed here. The dull gray paint was almost beautiful to his eyes, and the heavy steel frame was more than a sight for sore eyes.

"Thank god. I made it." He told himself as he ran a hand over the control terminal.

Obviously, time was still of the essence, and the longer he dithered, the more likely the BETA would start digging into the hangar's walls and doors. In spite of that, he took his time to unwind his nerves as he ran the release programs and switches, opening the TSF's cockpit one button at a time.

Normally, it took an experienced mechanic to decipher the streams of code, requests, and windows opening up all at once on the terminal, but for whatever reason, Takeru navigated the release system with practiced ease. For every prompt brought on screen, he had a command and override code drummed up quickly and precisely from the depths of his mind. And it wasn't as if he'd practiced or done this before, it just came naturally for him.

With a final flurry of keys, he hit the enter key. With a mechanical hum and wrench of rust-locked iron, the cockpit door opened. He stepped into the Shiranui and settled in, feeling something incredibly nostalgic about the action. Takeru's feet settled over the pedals, the metal first detecting his bodily dimensions and then clamping over them. His hands slid into the handles, and his head leaned forward, his gaze directed onto the frontal camera display.

With a climactic thud, the door closed behind him. For a few panicky moments, the cockpit was dark and dusty, silent and empty. Like a tomb. But, one by one, the devices began to light up. The overhead lamp, dimmed so as not to glare onto the holographic camera display, hummed to life. His handles loosened and opened up as the servos began to warm up after what had probably been ages of inactivity. Finally, the frontal camera lit up and he was given a view of the hangar bay.

An electronic beep caught his attention, and Takeru looked to the right to see an incoming transmission. Frowning, he touched the respond button on his control keyboard, immediately bringing up a view of Sumika's face. A face that was tear-stained and simultaneously worried and relieved.

"Takeru-chan!" She cried, a surge of happiness in her voice. "Thank god you're still alive!"

Takeru was having similar thoughts. "Of course I am. Do you honestly think a couple dozen BETA could bring _me_ down?" He said with false arrogance, hoping more to reassure her than inflate his ego.

She smiled back sheepishly, but more than anything, he could see just how heavy the expression looked on her face. "Takeru-chan, we were tracking you on camera..." Her voice trailed, as if to let the implication sink. "And there were those monsters, and there were just so _many_..."

"Sumika..."

"And then you got stuck in that hallway, with the locked door, and I thought, no, I just _knew_ you were going to die." She bit back a sob. "And then you shot out the camera, and I thought you were trying to spare me the sight of you dying, trying to be kind to me again in your last moments, like you always are..."

"Sumika, you know I wouldn't-"

She cried, long and solemnly. " _I thought you died!_ " Sumika buried her head into her hands, her tears coming back at an unbidden pace. "I doubted you, Takeru-chan, even though I said I would never ever doubt you again!"

Takeru fell silent.

"But... but then, the TSF light came on, and you opened the channel, and you weren't dead. I just, I..." Her voice trailed into silence as she struggled to speak.

"I'm just so glad you're okay." She finished.

If he had been there to hold her, he would have hugged her tight and stroked her head. But he wasn't, and all he could do was be strong, try his best to make it so she wouldn't have to worry.

"Yeah, I am too. But we're not done yet." He fired up the TSF's engines, enjoying the dull roar of noise that filled the cockpit. "I need you to open up the launch doors from your terminal."

Sumika trembled, biting back her sadness. "You have to fight again?"

Takeru looked down, not willing to look her in the eye. "There's a whole swarm of BETA up there, not to mention three Fort-classes. If I don't kill them now, too many of them are going to get into the base for the auto-guns to handle."

She squeezed her eyes shut, not saying anything for a long while. But eventually, she did open her mouth, and when she did, her voice sounded so incredibly _tired_.

"I... just wish this war would end. So you wouldn't have to put yourself in danger... so our friends wouldn't have to fight."

Takeru nodded solemnly. "You and me both, Sumika."

"Tou-san's gonna open up the launch bay. Get ready to fly up as soon as possible, Takeru-chan."

"Yeah."

"Do a good job out there."

"Yeah."

"And... and come back to me safely, okay?"

Takeru was silent for a moment. He'd heard the saying, never make a promise you can't keep. He knew the situation he was going into, and realistically, he couldn't be expected to survive. However, after some time, he nodded. "...Yeah, you got it Sumika."

Bright red lights, flashing and pulsing wildly, lit up and spun, the classic sign of an alarm. The launch bay, two massive slabs of motorized super-carbon blocking access to a large empty shaft, began to pull into the earth, opening up a ray of sunlight that Takeru was more than glad to see. He fired up his jump jets and began to lift, extremely glad to see that the on-board fuel and ammo reserves were completely full.

The Shiranui lifted into the air, and after hovering for all of a moment, went blazing high into the air. Takeru soared into the air, maneuvering past the still-opening launch doors and missing them by mere inches, and flew high into the sky. Looking down, he noticed what could only be described as a horde of BETA, swarming and tunneling into the mountain the base had been constructed under.

Takeru took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and breathed out, calming his nerves as best he could. He reaffirmed the grasp on his assault rifle, a Type-84 Assault Cannon to be exact, and went charging down to the ground, letting loose as many bullets as he could into the horde below. He twisted and banked hard to the left, and instead of trying to land feet first, he continued to dive at a break-neck pace toward the ground.

He released his right stabilizer and rolled his TSF, sending him into an insanely fast spin. Takeru's stomach lurched, and he nearly puked up bile, but he held tight and dug his feet tighter into the pedals. Grabbing his sword and holstering his rifle, he landed head-first into the mid-section of a lumbering Fort-class, tearing a path through it's flesh with the massive blade.

He flipped his TSF over mid-flight, capitalizing on the auto-correction algorithm to boost his acceleration, and landed hard into a Destroyer-class' rear end, crushing it entirely.

 _In the center of the hoard no escape no turning back no choice but to fight_ Takeru buried a wave of ceaseless thoughts and panic under an overpowering surge of determination.

"It's fight or die." He told himself as he surged forward, into the waiting jaws of innumerable BETA.

He charged down the center, carving through the ceaseless horde with naught but a blade and a fiery determination to simply _kill_. The fiery blaze of his jet engines intermixed with his own cries of murderous resolve into one loud, dull roar of noise. He slid low, boosting forward with a pulse of his afterburners, ripping through the soft underbellies of a half-dozen Grappler-class BETA. Flesh parted violently, accompanied by gouts of blood and sprays of viscera.

Takeru reversed his afterburners and brought his acceleration to a jarring halt. He activated the elbow booster in his right arm, normally reserved for flight maneuvers, and used it to send his blade positively _flying_ up, bisecting a Grappler straight up the middle. Just as he prepared to fly up through the opening he'd carved, his TSF began an automated heat-vent procedure.

"Engage rockets, dammit!" He cursed as his machine locked up, the strain on the machine becoming almost unbearable. "Activate override code IJ-56-FY! Faster, goddammit!" Obediently, the TSF halted the emergency protocols and lifted into the air at an impossibly fast speed, all safety limiters disengaged.

After reaching the sky, the TSF dashed to the right, flying quickly toward a Fort-class. Takeru gripped his sword hard and brought it high into the air with one hand, and just as he entered the BETA's kill zone, just as the metal ligaments of his Shiranui began to bend under the stress, he launched the blade ahead like a javelin. It tore through the creature's body like a knife through butter, ripping down through the midsection and burying itself into the soil below.

With a final, guttering sound that almost sounded like gasp, the Fort-class collapsed to the ground. Takeru had no time to even register the fact, however, as he pulled out his rifle and reversed his stance. He landed feet first and started to sprint ahead, opening fire into the horde he'd managed to flank.

Before the BETA could so much as turn to face him, he'd dropped well over two dozen of them with the 36mm alone. Takeru spared no time in pulling back to grab his sword from the earth, noting with clinical disengagement that it was on the verge of breaking in two. All the same, he took the blade in his left and his gun in the right, and charged ahead toward the final Fort-class.

"I have to take these bastards down-" He paused to cut his way through a Grappler. "-This fight can't end until I do!"

Takeru could feel his insides protesting with every move he made, and he knew that the longer this fight dragged on the higher his chances of falling unconscious, or worse still, suffering some kind of internal rupture. He could feel his eyes pressing into their sockets, pushed back from the sheer G-force, and his entire body, particularly his bones, was aching terribly. He didn't have the time to put on an armored suit earlier, and his body was paying for it in dividends.

His TSF dodged left, engaging every single rocket thruster to do so, narrowly missing an impalement on the Fort-class' tentacle. Takeru sprinted as fast as he possibly could, outflanking the BETA and exposing it's midsection. He opened fire, spraying as much depleted uranium as he possibly could, and in doing so cut the thing right down the middle. Exposed to the cold air prematurely, the massive numbers of Tank-class carried inside the BETA's body died en masse.

Takeru turned and jumped, soaring high over an incoming charge of Destroyers. He landed just behind them and opened fire, tearing them open with remarkable ease, even as his head pulsed and his eyes blurred.

Still, despite the victory, his situation was damn near hopeless. Even with the Forts done and dealt with, there was only so much one TSF could do against a swarm this size. His ammo was running low, his blade was blunted, and the rocket boosters were overheated and fuel-depleted. Worse still was the incredible strain being put on his machine. There was only so much he could do if his TSF decided to drop an arm, or in the worst case scenario, a leg.

"Goddammit!" He cursed. BETA were closing in, and though he wasn't surrounded and thus could easily get away, there was no way he could just abandon Sumika to die. And if he fled now, she most certainly would have.

He had no other options.

"Alright then, you bastards, I'm going to send you straight to hell." Takeru tensed his shoulders. "This is it, then. One last all-or-nothing play."

Takeru leveled his gun on the horde and opened fire, not at the front which posed the most danger, but at the rear guard. He held a tight stance, maximizing his accuracy at the cost of mobility, and let fly as many projectiles as his gun could reasonably fire.

"Come at me, you bastards! I'm right here!" He screamed into the TSF's microphone, his voice resonating loudly through the external speaker.

And surely enough, they did just that. The entirety of their forces, from the tiniest Soldier to the heaviest Destroyer, turned to face him. They charged, almost simultaneously, and Takeru could have sworn that, in that moment, all he could see was death flying straight toward him.

"Tasty, tasty meat, right here dammit!" His magazine emptied. Takeru auto-ejected it and loaded another, all in one fluid movement.

The Destroyers were on him in less than a few seconds, but he abandoned his stance and rocket-jumped high into the air, firing down at their vulnerable backsides as they passed. He banked left, bent both his arms backward, and ejected his elbow-boosters, letting them fly like improvised missiles into the swarm. Using another emergency override code, Takeru cut the fuel to his leg-boosters and dropped back to the ground.

With the entirety of the horde's attention on him, Takeru began to run back, firing rounds over his head to draw as much of their attention as he possibly could. Finally, he reached the beginning of a massive and dense forest. With the BETA still mindlessly charging for him, he figured this was far enough to not cause _too_ much harm to Sumika's shelter.

It was at this point that he barely had a grasp on his consciousness, let alone the plan he'd formed before he got this far. His insides were a mess, a painful, so very painful mess, and every movement he made brought a new wave of pain. Still, with what little of his strength remained, Takeru willed the mech to grab the S-11 explosive mounted at the skirt armor.

"Wish I had a cool one-liner at the moment..." Takeru muttered. "But I guess a big explosion's gonna have to do."

Takeru engaged the leg-rockets one last time, using his arms as stabilizing fins in lieu of his ejected elbow-boosters, and climbed as high as he could into the air. He took the S-11 in both hands, staring down at the shifting sea of BETA, and dropped it.

 _Don't feel like sticking around, gotta admit._ He thought as he began to fly away. _I'd rather not die a fiery death, after all._

The mech tore through the air as fast as Takeru could will it to, and though the rockets were just on the verge of exploding, he spared no time in making his getaway.

Just moments after he left the immediate blast radius, the S-11 hit the ground. An explosion, deafening even inside the cockpit, engulfed the forest, instantly evaporating the entirety of the BETA vanguard. The ensuing shockwave was massive, fast and powerful enough to disrupt Takeru's leg-rockets, and more than strong enough to wipe away whatever straggling creatures remained.

"Plan successful." He muttered, his voice low and weak.

He lowered his altitude, but not quickly enough, as his left rocket exploded in a flurry of shrapnel. Without an accompanying stabilizer on his right leg, his TSF spun out like a rifled bullet, flying toward the ground at a deadly velocity.

The ground was approaching at a rapid speed, and Takeru was certain that he would die from the impact. He was only barely aware of the world around him, the majority of his consciousness failing from a mixture of pain and bodily shock.

"Can...cel... override code... IJ-56... FY." He groaned.

Immediately, the TSF's emergency protocols came back to life, and in a desperate attempt to stabilize his descent, sent him careening towards the surface with his body splayed out to spread the impact as much as possible. Takeru closed his eyes and smiled, seeing his death in that expanse of grass and soil. He opened a comm link with Sumika, wanting to at least say one last goodbye.

Immediately, the request was accepted and Sumika's face appeared on the HUD. The joy and relief in her eyes turned to fear as soon as she saw his face.

"!" She didn't so much as say a word, instead making an indecipherable sound of surprise. "Takeru-chan!"

He smiled at her, but the expression was hollow. "Hey, Sumika. I think I'm going to die."

"But- but all the BETA are gone! The sensors aren't picking up anything else-"

He cut her off with by pushing a finger in front of his camera. "I'm three hundred meters in the air, my stabilizer's out, and I haven't got so much as a parachute to slow me down. I'm done for, Sumika."

"Takeru-chan! You... you can't die! You promised!"

He laughed dryly. "I've never broken... never broken a promise with you before, right Sumika?"

She nodded her head violently. "So you can't break this one either! You got that! You... you have to come back, or, o-or I'll hit you really hard!"

Takeru forged on, heedless of her protests. "I've always kept my word to you, Sumika, so..." His voice lapsed, partly from weakness and partly from the crushing wave of force buffeting his body. "So I think I've earned this one. Just this once, I'm gonna have to break a promise. I'm... sorry."

"Takeru-chan! Don't die, Take-" The video feed cut out as the signal receptors burned out.

The cameras were soon to follow, and then the external microphones, and then the lighting circuitry. Takeru found himself crashing to his death in a black, soundless coffin.

His last thoughts were of home.

* * *

When Yuuko received reports of a massive horde of BETA piling over the side of a mountain, she'd been concerned but made no immediate plans to attack. She had been curious to see what they were up to, and if they were creating a new hive, whether or not they could kill them and take the newly made reactor for themselves.

When the reports began to speak of an unaffiliated TSF engaging the horde, she became interested. According to the reports, the machine had fought the four-hundred strong force alone, and instead of harrying or distracting the BETA, it charged head on into the heart of the swarm. It emerged not only alive but with the advantage as well.

It was at that point that she mobilized a part of her team to the site, mainly to scout the TSF and it's movements. The action did little more than indulge her curiosity, but if there truly was a pilot that could pull off such a daring assault without getting killed, then she could easily find a use for them.

The Valkyries arrived quickly, and not only did they report a few interesting tidbits about the BETA's behavior on-site, but also recorded every one of the TSF's movements and maneuvers.

It was like nothing they'd ever seen before, Isumi had said. And that gave Yuuko a feeling almost akin to excitement. She ordered the Valkyrie squadron to hold position and continue observation, but, if the pilot ever seemed to be in danger of dying, they would intervene at their own discretion.

Then, after another ten minutes, her squad reported the TSF's success in killing all four hundred of the BETA, including the innumerable infantry-types that had also been dispatched. Isumi told her everything she saw, including a few things she didn't.

 _"As far as I could see, the pilot disengaged nearly ever automated system, from the auto-cooling to the stabilizers. He ditched his parts to gain speed and maneuverability, sometimes just to pull off single-use stunts, but every time he did so to gain a tactical advantage. He outflanked, out maneuvered, and outsmarted the BETA at every turn, and maybe that doesn't sound so impressive, but when you can bring down six dozen of them, solo, and with just a blade and a rifle, that deserves some praise."_ As far as Yuuko read, Isumi had nothing but praise for the pilot. And while she was always quick to encourage her soldiers with kind words, it was still unusual for her to be so impressed with any one thing.

All told, Yuuko was intrigued. Yokohama base was not at all understaffed, but the introduction of such a skilled pilot into the roster could do nothing but good. Not to mention it would be... interesting to find out why he or she had access to a fully functional Shiranui, as well as what appeared to be a secluded mountain headquarters.

"Alright, Pilot, you've piqued my interest. Let's hope you do nothing to squander it." Yuuko took a sip from her coffee mug, grimacing at the taste of the synthetic brew.

She received an incoming video-feed from Isumi. Yuuko brought it up and maximized the window, leaning into her desk and looking her in the eye.

"Have a report for me, First Lieutenant?"

"The TSF, ma'am. It, uh, crashed."

Yuuko frowned. "Crashed?"

Isumi nodded. "Yeah. It detonated an S-11 to deal with the last of the BETA, and flew into the air to escape. During the get away, one of the thrusters overheated and exploded; sent the whole mess flying into the ground."

"Is there any chance of recovering the pilot?" She asked, rapidly losing interest. A dead pilot was of no use to her, after all.

The red-haired captain was silent for a moment. "Possibly, ma'am. It was a hard landing, but the cockpit wasn't vaporized and the emergency air-brakes were activated just long enough to slow it's descent. I've got Mitsuki heading down to investigate, and Misae and I are going to check out the mountain they were trying to burrow into."

The scientist nodded. "Understood. Make your report as detailed as you can."

"Ma'am." Isumi saluted, and then cut the transmission.

Yuuko sighed and got up from her chair. She reached up and rubbed shoulders with her fingers, moving them in lazy circles. Her muscles were tensed and coiled, had been like that for awhile now, and recently the sensation was becoming something akin to pain. The stress was getting to her, she realized, and it did not surprise her in the slightest. Just a year ago, she was a schoolteacher; had been teaching a class full of youthful and innocent kids, not commanding battalions of battle-hardened soldiers. She should have been in this building not as a scientist but as a simple chemistry teacher.

And whether or not she showed it, she was terribly worried about her former students. Nearly all of them had been drafted into this war, and those that hadn't were either dead or missing. She'd seen good kids get killed for seemingly no reason, and though she'd never made it a point to get especially close to her students, it still hurt to see their names appear on the KIA list time after time. Yuuko wasn't sure how many of them were still fighting, but she knew with utter certainty how many of them had died.

"I just want this war to end." She said, talking to no one in particular.

The doors to her office opened, and a man in a gray trench-coat walked into the room. "Well, Kouzuki-san, I may just have a way to arrange that." He dropped a manila folder on her desk.

Yuuko grabbed at the folder and read the title aloud.

"The Alternative plan?" She directed a sharp, inquisitive glare on to the trench-coat man. "Explain."

He smiled. "With pleasure, doctor." The man opened the folder and pulled from it's depths an average-sized sheet of paper filled to the absolute brim with small-font text. "After a year of active engagement with the BETA, we've yet to come close to pushing them off of Earth. The Alternative Plan is, put simply, a plot to open communications with the extra terrestrials, and if possible, negotiate a peace treaty."

Yuuko nodded, leaning in another inch and putting her hands thoughtfully over her mouth. "And how do you propose we do such a thing?"

"Direct analysis. Simply put, the plan is to assault one of their Phase-Three hives in Russia and place within the depths an audio-capture device. Hopefully the data we capture will be enough to get a grasp on their communication."

"I see. And why have you come to me with this, and not the UN council?" Yuuko asked, narrowing her eyes with suspicion.

The trench-coat man was decidedly nonplussed. "We have yet to find a more capable scientist than yourself. Building a device durable enough to withstand months, perhaps years inside a BETA hive, while also possessing a power storage that can last just as long is no easy feat. A device small enough to go unnoticed, and with an extensive array of microphones to record as much as possible, but also taking no extraneous time to install."

Smiling, the man pulled another sheet of paper from the folder. An extensive profile on Yuuko's character and commendations. "All of these conditions must be met, and the device must be made within six months. With all other minds engaged on the war, you are the only one who could undertake such a task."

Yuuko paused for a moment, reading through the documents in the folder. "Very well. I'll agree to it; you'll have that device in six months."

"Very good." With that, the Trench-coat man turned to walk out the door.

"Wait a moment." Yuuko called. "What's your name?"

At that moment, the smile on the man's face looked downright dangerous. "My name? I suppose it couldn't hurt to tell you..."

He paused, as if for dramatic effect. "It's Yoroi. Yoroi Sakon."

* * *

 **AN**

As you can see, I'm taking some liberties with the TSF designs and structures. Also, I know the drama is stupid and cuts in too abruptly, but it exists for a reason. A reason which, in typical douchebag fashion, I will not reveal.


	2. Intro Arc, C2

**AN**

So, for those of you who care, I've compiled a list of changes and differences between this fic's universe and the canon. This is mainly to clear up confusion, so if you aren't confused or simply don't give a crap, move along please.

1\. Nearly every major event in the story has been pushed or pulled back/forward in time in all sorts of directions. Hence a 1978 start date and only just NOW is Alternative I being put into motion. This is mainly to carve myself a nice large chunk of timeline to play with. You can still expect to see most events put into play, except barring maybe some of the Alternative and Unlimited bits that would likely be nullified by events to come, like the Coup d'etat.

2\. Regarding Takeru, his personality may seem slightly different. All in all, he is pretty much himself, except he's got a lot more mental fortitude, doesn't freak out much, and is damned hard to tease. So, pretty much the way he was after he went back to the Extra dimension and got Marimo killed.

3\. For seemingly no good reason, the majority of the military rankings of characters like Isumi and Hayase have been pushed down a notch. Isumi is a 1st Lieutenant now. Don't know why I did this, honestly, but what's done is done and I can't take back what I've written.

4\. Regarding this universe in general, it can pretty much just be called, Extra if it got invaded by BETA. This means that Sumika is around and Yuuko used to be a schoolteacher before she was a miitary scientist. Other changes too, like Marimo not yet being an instructor MIGHT be put into place, but it could potentially fuck up the continuity.

Anyway, that's it. Hope that clears stuff up, and if you have any other questions, don't hesitate to send a PM, ot better yet, drop a review.

* * *

Sumika stared absently at the black monitor, her mind stuck in a state of shock. Thoughts, a whole flurry of them, coursed through her mind in one raging maelstrom.

 _Takeru-chan, why aren't you saying anything? This_ is _all a joke, right? You're not really dead, right? Hey, Takeru-chan, say something. You wouldn't leave me, right? You said you'd never leave me, that we'd be together forever! Takeru-chan!_

Without even noticing it, she began to sob. The cries came from deep down, in her chest and stomach, the guttural moans of pain and anguish. Sumika reeled, her vision blurring in and out between waves of tears. Tears, once again, were streaming down her face in ceaseless streams. Long and miserably, she cried her heart out. Even as her father looked her in the eye and asked- no, _commanded_ \- her to calm down, she continued to cry. Every other voice, her aunts, her fathers, her cousins, was drowned out by her own emotions.

"Takeru-chan...!" She drew her voice out in long, uneven gasps. "Takeru-chan!" Oblivious to the world, she let her misery out to the world. And for a long time she continued to do so. Her voice didn't weaken and her sobs didn't end; it seemed as if she'd go on forever.

But she didn't. And, when the last fraying thread of sanity snapped, her choked cries turned to a roar of anger and desperation. The change occurred as quickly and suddenly as a lightning flash, too quickly to see and certainly too quickly to stop.

She leveled her gaze, red-hot and hateful, onto the man that was holding her shoulders and begging her to calm down. Her father.

"You bastard!" Sumika screamed, and exploded into action, jumping from her chair and slamming into her father's chest.

The sudden tackle caught him off guard, and he fell back onto the hardened super-carbon floor, slamming his head hard against a wall in the process. Before he could even register what had happened, his daughter was straddling him at the chest and raining blows down on his head and shoulders.

"Why did Takeru-chan have to die?!" She screamed. " _You_ were supposed to protect us! You're my father! Why didn't _you_ fight instead of him?!"

Sumika's relatives only stared at the scene in shock, each of them _wanting_ to move but stuck in a fear-induced paralysis. "I loved him! I loved Takeru-chan _so_ much! And now he's dead, dead because _you_ couldn't protect him!"

Pounding her fists harder and harder into his face, Sumika gave absolutely no respite; not for herself and certainly not for her father. Even as her fingernails cut bloody crescents into her palms and her fingers began to strain from the repeated impact, she refused to stop.

Her father did not fight back. Instead, he shed tears of his own, and as the torrential rain of blows pulverized his face, he didn't turn away or shield himself. Chanting 'I'm sorry' over and over again, he could only cry as the guilt bit into his heart. After all, Takeru had been like a son to him. And if not a son, then the only man who he would have considered worthy of his daughter. Losing him hurt, badly, no matter how much he tried to disguise it.

He could feel his consciousness slipping as he was barraged by pain. Vision graying out in between waves of dizziness, he found himself with neither a will to hold on nor the strength to do so. Just after he slipped under, a pair of arms wrapped around Sumika's chest and tried to pull her off. Like a crazed animal, she turned and lashed out at the person, catching her aunt full in the face with a punch. Sumika could feel the ligaments in her hand cracking from the impact, could feel the pain coursing up her nerves.

Suddenly, just as she linked her hands into a hammerhead shape over her unconscious Father's helpless skull, another alarm rang out over the speakers. There were no red lights to accompany them, of course, but the blaring sound was more than enough to distract Sumika.

 _"Intruders have been detected in the hangar bay. Friendly IFF not detected; assumed hostiles."_ The female, monotone voice of the automated warning system politely informed her.

First was confusion, and then anger. _Why are there others? Do they know something about Takeru-chan? Did_ _ **they**_ _kill Takeru-chan?!_

She got to her feet, and as she did, everyone else backed away from her in obvious fear. Not caring in the slightest, she walked to the heavy blast doors that led out of the panic room. With the mechanical precision of an automaton, she slid her access card into the slot and walked out into the hallway. In doing so, she stepped over the shredded remains of the various BETA that had tried to gain access to the room and met instead with the 7.62 auto-cannons.

"Takeru-chan..." She muttered under her breath, walking brokenly down the hallway. "Find the people who killed Takeru-chan... and kill them... find them... kill them..." At that moment, had anyone been around to do so, they would have looked into Sumika's eyes and found two empty pits, devoid of light or sanity.

An indeterminate amount of time later, she found herself in the complex's armory. Kagami Sumika had never held a gun in her life, and had only seen the most rudimentary depictions of them in her books. All the same, when she grabbed the machine gun on the rack, it was as if it was totally natural to her. She pulled back the bolt and hefted it up to her chest, obviously struggling with the weight. Still, when she walked back into the hallway, she looked completely lethal, in spite of the schoolgirl skirt.

Within moments, she could hear the sound of footsteps. They were so close, so very, very close. Whoever the intruders were, they were coming, and they were coming fast.

 _They killed Takeru-chan, and now they're gonna try to kill me too. I won't let them... I'll kill them first. I'll shoot them, and then I'll shoot myself, and then I can be with Takeru-chan forever..._

In the next instant, 1st Lieutenant Isumi and 2nd Lieutenant Misae rounded the corner.

* * *

The ruins of the gray Shiranui were still extremely hot to the touch, scorched by friction and flame. However, when Mitsuki reached the hatch, she did not hesitate in the slightest to grab the latch with both hands. She pulled with as much strength as she could muster, even as the material on her armored suit began to blacken from the heat, and forced the heavy steel door open. Time was of the essence, and it didn't take a genius to understand that the longer one was left in a crashed TSF, the less likely the pilot was to survive.

When the cockpit door came down in a mess of broken shrapnel, she charged into the smoldering ruins and grabbed the pilot's body- which she could only barely see through the darkness- and hauled him out as quickly as humanly possible. It was hot inside the wreck, unbearably so, and standing inside it for even those paltry few seconds was enough to make her break into sweat.

With both hands locked under the pilot's arms, she dragged him out and pulled him into the cold November air. What she saw was surprising, on many levels.

The pilot looked young, very young, barely eighteen at most. And while that was par for the course nowadays, the skills Mitsuki had seen on display just a few minutes ago should not have been possible for someone who looked to barely out of Basic. The same went for his body; the level of physical training he possessed was far and away above that of a recruit. He was also unarmored. No suit, no stabilization gyros, not even a safety harness. Just a pair of white nondescript boxer shorts and t-shirt. How exactly he had managed to hold on to his stomach for so long was beyond her.

"What the hell are you made of?" She asked, not an ounce of humor in her voice.

Mitsuki stepped back for a moment and ran a hand through her hair, feeling more confused than anything. At the moment, she didn't have the slightest idea on what to do. She considered calling Isumi for further orders, but eventually decided against it. Moving the pilot was probably probably dangerous considering his condition, so she opted to sit tight. Besides, she couldn't see or hear any BETA in the immediate vicinity, so she would probably be fine.

She stretched her arms high into the air, yawning tiredly. The pilot she recovered was lying on the ground a few feet away. Propped up so he wouldn't puke and choke to death in his sleep.

Mitsuki cast a sidelong glance at the man, or perhaps boy considering how young he looked, and noted how disturbingly _worn_ his expression looked. It was as if he was a five-year veteran stuck in an eighteen-year old's body.

"Hope you wake up soon, Pilot-san. I've got a _lot_ to ask you about."

Mitsuki shrugged her tensed shoulders and hopped onto her TSF's arm, scaling the worn metal and entering through the cockpit's open hatch. She retrieved a handgun, a piddly nine-millimeter, and climbed back out onto the shoulder, hoping for an uneventful wait.

With her ears on the wind and her eyes on the ground, Mitsuki waited. And for as long as she sat idly by, she never once let her thoughts drift onto anything other than her mission.

(line break?)

Takeru awoke a short few minutes later, his body battered and his mind shaken. A hand twitched, and it took him some time to understand that _yes,_ it was _his_ hand, and that _yes,_ he was alive after all. He was surprised by it at first, the sensation of cold air prickling at his skin, but as his reeling psyche calmed down, so did he.

Then, with all the sudden shock and power of a gunshot, stomach bile came roaring up his throat. He managed to stand, or at the very least got to his knees, before spewing out a flood of intermixed liquid. Some of it was clear, but most of it was an alarmingly bright shade of crimson. He wasn't aware of how long he retched, nor was he consciously aware of the burning sensation in his throat and nostrils. At that moment, he felt disturbingly separated from his own body.

He felt himself on the verge of passing out again, but with all the internal strength he could muster, Takeru railed against the gray wave. And somehow, as he wiped away the blood on his chin, he realized for the second time that he hadn't died. Takeru got to his feet, pushing himself off the dirt with his two burnt hands, and gasped in a deep breath of sweet, open air. Air that didn't taste like rusty iron and silicon.

There was a wonderful sense of triumph as he did so. Triumph over the BETA, triumph over death, hell, triumph over _himself_. That alone was worth celebrating.

"I'm alive! Haha, I'm alive dammit!" He cheered to no one in particular as a peculiar urge to pump his fists in the air overcame him.

He wiped away the last of the blood on his face and neck and took a look at his surroundings. His eyes came to rest on the figure of a blue-haired woman, sitting nonchalantly on the shoulder of a military-grade Shiranui. Takeru's gaze met hers and he nodded, just once, in gratitude.

"I don't suppose you're the one who saved me?" He asked, already knowing the answer.

The woman smiled down on him, and with a dexterous flourish, she threw herself off the mech's shoulder, grabbed onto the chest-plate, and climbed down to the ground.

"You've got that right." She said as she approached him. "Hayase Mitsuki, 2nd Lieutenant Eishi." Mitsuki held out her hand, despite his being covered in blood.

Takeru took it, held tight, and shook. "Shirogane Takeru. I'm, uh, just a civilian."

She smiled wryly at that. "For a civilian, you handle yourself pretty damn well in a TSF." She remarked. "I don't suppose you care to tell me how you learned to do all that? Or where you got that Shiranui from?"

"You saw everything?" He asked, genuinely surprised as he looked back at the TSF's smoldering ruin.

"Hell yeah I did!" Mitsuki exclaimed excitedly. "And I swear, if you don't tell me _exactly_ how you pulled off those maneuvers- I mean seriously, how the hell do you slide _under_ Grapplers- I'm going to, um... Well, I don't know what I'll do, but you can be damn sure it'll hurt."

Takeru chuckled, not because the joke was funny, but because it simply felt good to laugh. "I'm shaking in my boots, Mitsuki-" He cut himself off. "Oh shit, I'm supposed to address you military types by rank, aren't I?"

She waved her hand flippantly. "Yeah, technically you are, but really, only the stuck-up pricks and the super important ones really care. Just call me Mitsuki."

"Okay then, but call me Takeru in return."

"Sure, sure." She stretched her arms over her head. "Now, I believe you owe me a couple explanations. First and foremost, how exactly did you get hold of a fully-functional TSF?"

Takeru bit his lip, hoped that telling her wouldn't bring any negative consequences for Sumika, and pointed to the mountain in the distance. "There's a huge underground complex over there. My friend and her family, and me too of course, were using it as a shelter to try and wait out this war. The BETA found us, no surprise there, and forced me to break out the only TSF stationed there."

Mitsuki nodded, now looking completely serious. "Sure, but that doesn't explain why the Shiranui was there in the first place."

He shrugged. "I don't know a damn thing. Sumika's parents are rich, and I think they might have a couple military connections, but I'm not sure if that's enough to get them a TSF." Takeru paused. "But in any case, I'm glad it was there. Wouldn't have been able to drive the BETA off if it wasn't."

"Hm. I see." She looked back to her own mech. "Well, in any case, we'll find out soon enough. Isumi and Misae are headed there right now."

"Are those your comrades?"

Mitsuki nodded.

Takeru blanched just the slightest bit. "Hey, uh, you guys are UN forces, right? Not mercenaries or privateers or something?"

She frowned. "Yeah, we're with the UN. What else would we be?"

"Just checking. During our first few months down there, we had a few guys trying to get inside. Except, instead of the door, they used high explosives."

"Well, you don't have to worry about that anymore. Pretty much all the mercenary companies have been either integrated into the military or wiped out."

Takeru's expression grew impassive. "I see. Well, in any case, why don't we get back to my compound. You probably need to rendezvous with your squad and I need to see my friend before she gets too depressed or something."

"True, very true, but are you sure you'll be okay? You just spent twenty-five minutes inside a TSF without a suit; you sure you wanna get back in?"

Takeru shrugged. "I'd rather get back in the cockpit than walk for three hours. Sumika probably thinks I'm dead right now, so the sooner I get back to her the better."

Mitsuki nodded. "Alright, sure. Hope you don't mind sharing a seat; it's kinda cramped in there."

"Not a problem." Takeru said cheerfully. "Now let's get this show on the road!"

Mitsuki climbed up into the cockpit, leading the still-weakened Takeru by the hand. She took her seat and grabbed onto the controls with one hand, patting the spot in front of her lap with the other. When he blushed ever so slightly, she laughed.

"What, never sat on a girl's lap before?"

Takeru rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Uh, well, no. Guess I haven't."

She grinned at him. "Well there's a first time for everything. Now hurry up and sit, lap-virgin."

"Do you really have to say virgin?"

"Ooh, is that a sore point for you, Virgin-san?"

He groaned. "This is gonna be a long ride, isn't it?"

"You're damn right it is. And you're going to enjoy every moment of it. I happen to be quite a pleasant individual, or so I've heard." Mitsuki bragged jokingly.

Takeru settled in, feeling more than a little uncomfortable. "Not sure whose been telling you that, but I'd say you're anything but."

Mitsuki thumped him on the head. "Ah, so cruel~" The doors came to a close, locking them in soundless darkness. "Shouldn't you be a lot nicer to pretty ladies?"

The lights came on. The engine roared to life.

"Lady? Where's this lady you speak of?" Takeru asked.

She hit him again, lightly. "Idiot."

In turn, Takeru elbowed her in the stomach, despite the fact that she was wearing an armored suit. "Hey, be nicer to me. I'm injured." He protested, forcing his voice to an annoyingly high pitch.

"You're a man, you can take it." As if to prove her point, she took an arm off the right handle to karate-chop the top of his head.

Takeru chuckled at that, thinking of how he treated Sumika the same way. "Y'know, if you weren't already in love, I might think you were coming onto me."

Mitsuki froze up, and in doing so, brought her TSF to a jarring halt as well.

"Hey!" Takeru protested, the sudden stop nearly throwing him off the seat.

"H-how did you know?!" She asked suddenly, and if Takeru could turn around in the tight confines of the TSF, he was sure he would have seen a furious blush on her face.

"Idiot~" He intoned. "You've got a picture of him mounted right above the camera display. _And_ you used a heart-shaped sticker to do it; I've never seen a more obvious sign in my life."

"T-that could just be a coincidence!" Mitsuki protested.

Takeru laughed. "Could have been, sure, but judging by your reaction, I just hit the nail right on the head, didn't I?"

A sound that seemed suspiciously similar to a growl escaped the woman's throat. Takeru only laughed harder.

"Tell. No one." She growled.

"You got it, Mitsuki."

Mitsuki fell silent for a time, keeping her eyes focused on the camera. But as she passed over the remains of the BETA Takeru had dispatched earlier, she whistled appreciatively. The entire battlefield was a mess of blood and corpses, casings and shells. Bodies told stories all on their own, stories of successfully pulled flanks, of bravado-fueled kamikaze charges, of acrobatic side-strafes and dodges.

"Seeing it from a distance is one thing, but jeez, there's gotta be at least a hundred bodies here."

Takeru waved it off. "Be careful about praising me; too much and you're gonna make my ego pop."

Mitsuki ruffled his hair, much like an older sister would. "Hey, modesty's one thing, but it takes a lotta balls and a lotta skill to kill so many of these things solo. Have some pride."

"Didn't some religious guy once say pride goes before a fall?"

"Ah, sure, if you're a dick about it. But being proud of what you're capable of and being a jackass are two very different things." The TSF glided over the battlefield with ease, and quickly came to the open jaw of the hangar bay. "Alright, looks like we made it. Your insides holding up alright?"

Honestly, Takeru's guts were putting up a much harder fight than he would have liked. All the same, he responded favorably. "Never better. Let's dismount as soon as possible, I need to see Sumika."

The woman grinned knowingly down at him. "You've mentioned her name a lot." She remarked. Then, leaning in close, she whispered in his ear. "You fucking her?"

To her chagrin, Takeru wasn't flustered in the slightest. It was as if he'd been asked this question before; several times, in fact. "'Course not. Sumika's like a sister to me."

Mitsuki pouted. "Aw, you're not as cute when you're not blushing."

"Sorry to disappoint." The TSF came to a stop in the hangar's ground floor, standing flush with two other inactive mechs.

Takeru and Mitsuki opened up the cockpit door. Mitsuki left first, more familiar with dismounting the machine than him, and was careful to guide him down by hand. When they stepped onto solid ground, Takeru breathed a sigh of relief.

"Ah, thank god. And thank you too, Mitsuki. Now c'mon, we should probably get going." Takeru said, moving slowly to calm his turbulent insides.

"Okay. I'll be right behind you, then, Takeru."

Takeru used his clearance card, thankful that he still held onto it through the fight, and opened up the elevator that led to the main platform above.

"Ladies first." He said, pretending to hold the elevator's doors open.

"My my, aren't you a gentleman." Daintily, in imitation of a sheltered Ojou-sama, she walked into the beautifully decorated lift. Once inside, however, the act gave way to genuine amazement as she stared at the carved wooden walls. "Y'know, when you said you lived in a huge underground complex, I wasn't expecting something so... ritzy."

Takeru smiled, almost wistfully. "This is a shelter, y'know. And since Sumika's family is rich, it makes sense that they'd shill out the big bucks to make their underground complex look pretty."

The doors closed, and the elevator begin to make its way up.

"Even so, this is just... I guess I'm just not used to it, yet."

Takeru nodded. "Yeah, neither am I. I've been here for five months now, and I still don't like it much."

Mitsuki's eyes widened the slightest bit. "Why not? Isn't it beautiful?"

"Maybe so, but..." His voice trailed. "It makes me feel like I'm hiding from the truth. And I know that hiding is literally all I've been doing down here, but all the same, I don't like that feeling. I know that behind the hand-carved wood is ugly concrete; I know that behind this crafted facade is a bloody war." He said, laying his thoughts bare.

Mitsuki ran a hand over the carvings. "I think I can understand. I mean, well..." She fell silent. "No, I totally understand. I can't say I'd be able to withstand months of being caged, no matter how pretty the cage happened to be."

Takeru looked back at her, surprised. "Really? I think you're the first person to agree with me on this."

She smiled knowingly. "You said your friend's parents are rich, right? I guess rich means sheltered, too, and when you've been living like that all your life, you're not going to want to change."

Takeru shook his head in agreement."Just like us, then. If they've lived their whole lives on the inside, then we've lived our lives on the outside. It's just unnatural to want anything different."

Mitsuki hummed. "Yeah, that's it."

The elevator came to a halt, and the doors came sliding open. Takeru and Mitsuki stepped onto the platform, and the first thing they noticed were the corridor blast doors, chewed through by BETA jaws. Blood, that of the Warrior-class he'd crushed with the doors, fanned out in front of them in a wide arc.

"That's a lot of blood. Did you have to fight your way here?" Mitsuki asked as she crouched down to observe all the imprints left by the BETA footprints.

Takeru nodded. "Got into a melee with a Warrior-class, actually. Had to use the blast doors to crush it's head."

Mitsuki shuddered. "God, that must've been terrifying. I can't imagine fighting one of those things on foot."

"Yeah." Takeru agreed simply. "When that thing came charging at me, I came _this_ close to just freezing up. Nearly pissed my shorts, too. But somehow, right before it ripped off my head, I decided I wanted to live after all and rolled out of the way."

"You're a brave one, Takeru. If nothing else, I'll give you that."

He shook his head. "I'm not brave. I just didn't want to die."

"Still..." She trailed off and shrugged her shoulders. "Anyway, we should get going. Like you said earlier, time is of the essence."

"Right." Takeru walked through the chewed blast doors, stepping over the Warrior's corpse, and walked back through the hallway. A peculiar feeling came over him as he surveyed all the damage the BETA had done. He'd collapsed the walls and ceiling to buy time, but it seemed that just minutes after he'd done so, they bit right through it. It was enough to make him shudder.

 _If I'd been just a little slower in opening that cockpit..._

Suddenly, the roar of bullets and powder, impossibly loud in these enclosed hallways, broke Takeru from his observations.

"Gunfire! Are the BETA still in the base?!" Takeru shouted to himself. He turned to Mitsuki, who pulled her handgun from it's holster, and nodded to her. "Let's go!"

"Right behind you!"

* * *

 _Fifteen minutes earlier_

The first thing Isumi noticed was the gun. The next thing was the girl's eyes, lifeless and dead, and how much _insanity_ she could see in them.

"Run." Isumi barked as she grabbed Misae by the shoulder and shoved her back. " _RUN DAMMIT!_ "

There wasn't even a pause before the bullets started flying with a deafening roar. The gunfire, loud and terrifying, was hardly mitigated by her suit's sound dampeners. Bullets began to fly, screaming toward them, but even as her nerves threatened to freeze in terror, Isumi refused to give in. Without missing a beat, she leaped into action, jumping in front of Misae and spreading her arms as wide as possible to cover as much as she possibly could.

Lead, a deadly storm of it, sprayed through nearly every inch of open air. When the first bullet hit her, punching hard and fast into her armored midsection, Isumi swore she could feel every muscle fiber, every strand of tissue, caving inward. Lances of pain, white hot and searing, bit into her nerves, and a spray of blood erupted from her mouth and splattered against the wall. She staggered back, away from the girl shooting at them, and suddenly found it hard to breathe.

Then, suddenly, they were running, both of them, back down the hallway they came from. The hail was all around them, surrounding them, and with every nanosecond that passed any one bullet could have ended their lives immediately. But somehow, as they passed back around the corner, both women found that they weren't dead yet.

The gunfire ceased for a moment as they moved out of sight. Almost immediately, a thick silence fell over the corridor.

Isumi leaned against the wall, breathing in shallow, rapid gasps. Her body was screaming, her head reeled, and with every moment that passed her conscious mind threatened to buckle on her. Her insides felt like stirred pudding; for every moment she was on her feet, she felt like retching up blood.

No amount of bullets could punch through an armored suit, but all the same, no one could walk away from two dozen rounds unscathed.

She shifted against the wall, steadying herself as she moved forward at a crawling pace. Blood flowed from her mouth and nose in rivulets, splattering messily onto the floor.

"1st Lieutenant, let me help you!" Before Isumi could even protest, Misae grabbed her by the arm and draped her around her shoulder.

The girl with the gun, a cute redheaded thing with a ribbon at her back, took slow, menacing steps toward them. Every sound made seemed elevated in the silent corridor; every breath the girl took, every casing that hit the ground, hell, even the minute creases of fabric made with every movement, all of it sounded insanely loud in the pervading silence.

An endless maze of wooden corridors yawned out ahead of them, confusing and intricate. Navigating them seemed like a fool's errand, and even as Misae chanted words of power to herself, she could feel her mind caving to the panic. Where did she turn? What paths led where? Where was she? How could she escape?

Questions without answers bombarded her mind, and in that moment, Misae could have begged for the girl to open fire once more, if only to drown out her traitorous thoughts with gunfire. She turned down the right, walking down another nearly identical hallway. The girl's footfalls were right behind them, taunting her, testing her. To make things worse, the 1st Lieutenant seemed to be growing heavier and heavier.

"Hey, hey, Isumi, don't fall asleep on me." Misae pleaded, trying to keep her voice as low as possible.

"'S okay, I'll be a'rite." Isumi muttered, her voice slurring. "Jus' getting har' ta walk is all."

"I'm sorry, I know you took those bullets for me, but you have to move faster. If we slow down too much, she's gonna catch us." Misae told her, whispering furiously.

"I know..." Isumi breathed. "I'll try."

Isumi, arm still draped around her subordinate's shoulder, steadied herself and pushed ahead, struggling with every step. There was pain in every movement, Misae could see, but she staggered forward all the same.

"Yeah, that's it. We just need to get back to the hangar..."

 _If I can find it, that is._ She thought.

Misae knew that the longer the hallway, the more likely they were to get spotted. She had to turn down another path, and soon too, before the girl caught up to them. She looked frantically around, hoping for a convenient turning point among the rows and rows of identical doors.

There were none.

"Damn." Misae cursed. "Looks like we've got no choice, Isumi. We're going to have to try and hide in one of these rooms."

Misae wrapped her hand around the doorknob nearest to her right and turned it experimentally. Thankfully, it gave with ease.

"Not locked." She said. "Good, looks like we're in business."

Misae pulled the door open, revealing the inside to be a large, empty room stacked with boxes. An empty bedroom, it seemed. The 2nd Lieutenant pushed Isumi into the darkness first. She looked back over her shoulder, much like a paranoid doe would, and made sure the girl hadn't seen them. Safety ascertained, she stepped into the room and closed the door behind her.

Immediately, she helped Isumi get behind the pile of cardboard boxes, hoping that it would provide suitable cover, and stashed herself into the corner farthest from the entrance. Laying low, on her stomach, she kept her eyes locked firmly on the stream of light coming from just under the paneled door.

Time passed. As to how much exactly, Misae wasn't certain; in the midst of that silent darkness, where her heartbeat was irregular and violent, she'd had no grasp on the seconds or minutes. But eventually, after that indeterminate length, a pair of small feet stepped in front of the door, creating two spots of darkness in that ray of lamplight.

Misae's chest exploded with anxiety, her lungs contracting on themselves, her throat suddenly clogged with absolutely nothing. Sweat rolled down her face and head, disappearing into the minute micro-pores of her armored suit. Her heart was pounding in her ears, more blaringly loud to her at that moment than it had ever been.

 _Go away go away go away_ She screamed internally, desperation rising like bile in her throat.

The doorknob twisted, turned, back and forth in place, as if to mock her. Misae squeezed her eyes shut and drowned out the world, trying hard not to think about what would happen if the knob turned fully.

But eventually, the twisting stopped and the metallic scratching of metal-on-metal ceased. The two small feet stood in the doorway for a second longer, before walking away. A flurry of feelings filled Misae at that moment: surprise, gratitude, but most of all, relief. She resisted the impulse to release all the air she didn't know she'd been holding.

Misae counted to sixty, got to her feet, and went to the door. Checking under the panels one last time, she turned the handle. After stepping through the door, she squeezed her eyes shut as she let her eyes adjust to the sudden brightness. For the second time, she felt incredibly glad to be alive. Incredibly glad to have made it.

And when she opened her eyes again, she realized she was staring directly into the dead-black gaze of the redheaded girl.

"You killed Takeru-chan." She said bluntly.

And pulled back the trigger.

* * *

 **AN**

Yay! Cliffhanger! Everybody loves cliffhangers, right? Right...?

Anyway, if you're wondering, I'm trying to do this thing where I delay my chapter releases by one, so whenever I put something out, be assured that the next bit is already done. This is partly so I can have insurance if I get sick or injured or suffer a Block, but mostly so I can go back and edit/revise bits of the previous chapter at leisure.

Responses to anonymous reviews will go down here from now on.


	3. Intro Arc, C3

**AN**

Very recently I asked the people on my favorites list, which is by no means particularly long (it's damn short, actually), how they'd react if I added in OCs to fill minor roles and add more perspectives to the story. The leading consensus was that they'd be okay with it, though one of them did offer an interesting solution, that being using the names and faces of characters from other anime to help with memorizing appearances and descriptions and such. An example would be having, say, Rei Ayanami, be an Eishi or staff member, but without any of the characteristics of the Ayanami from Evangelion. In other words, an OC in everything but name.

That is a potential fix, but I also feel that it's a bit of a copout. Y'know, cause it'd give me a free pass to not describe stuff. OCs bear a number of problems, and there's a pretty big stigma against them in the FF community. It'll take me some time to start writing proper, well developed characters, so I'll leave it be for now. Burn that bridge when we get to it, right?

On an entirely unrelated note, chapter four was written and edited so damn quickly that I can put this up nice and early. Seriously, I had a tone of fun writing that one.

* * *

Takeru found her standing over the broken body of an Eishi, holding a gun that was far too big for her tiny hands. Her clothes, her skin, her hair. They were bloody. Incredibly so. Splattered with gouts and sprays of the stuff, crisscrossing up and down her body in nonsensical patterns.

"Sumi...ka..." Takeru whispered, his throat suddenly constrained. Still, in the oppressive silence, his voice carried with incredible clarity.

Sumika turned and faced him, and though her eyes were aglow with feral savagery, they were still empty in an entirely different sense.

"Takeru...chan..?" Tilting her head in puzzlement, she asked in a perfectly dull monotone, "Aren't you dead?"

He shook his head, slowly, and took a tentative step forward. "No, no... of course not..." Takeru stepped closer. "You know I would never-"

"You'd never do what, Takeru-chan? Never abandon me? Never die?" The accusation was left unsaid, but understood all the same. _Because you've already done those things._

"Sumika, I know I said all that to you, I know I made you worry, but in the end, I survived. And the proof... well, I'm standing in front of you right now, aren't I?"

"No... no, you're not real!" Suddenly, Sumika screamed, clutching her temples and digging her fingers into her scalp. She staggered back, reeling and wavering, screeching like a banshee. "It's not real! You're not real, Takeru-chan! You're dead! You're _not_ here right now, you can't be!"

Takeru took another step closer. "Sumika, I'm alive. I'm real, you... you can see me, can't you?"

"It's a hallucination! A fake! A figment of my imagination! You died, Takeru-chan, I saw it, I heard it!"

"I didn't die, Sumika. The TSF, it, it survived the impact. _I_ survived." Something approaching nervousness entered his voice, threatening to turn to fear.

Sumika shook her head violently, spraying droplets of blood left and right. "I saw you die, Takeru-chan! _So. Many. Times!_ You got eaten by the monsters! You got shot by the bad people! You got blown up by a falling spaceship! I saw _everything_!" She put a finger to her forehead. "I saw it _here_."

Then, she frowned, raised the gun's barrel, and pointed it at Takeru's body. Pensive apprehension spread across her face. "But... if you're not the real Takeru-chan... then you're an impostor?"

Slowly, ever so slowly, he walked toward her. He shook his head and put his hands in front of himself defensively. "I'm real, Sumika. I'm not an impostor. Ask me anything, and I'll prove it to you."

She broke into a fit of screaming laughter. "No, no, no! I won't fall for that! You've been trained for exactly that, haven't you, Impostor-san?" She pointed the gun down at the bloodied Eishi. "You and these people, you killed the real Takeru-chan, didn't you?!"

He took another step toward her, almost close enough to reach out and touch her. "Sumika... I-I'm real, just let me prove it to you."

Sumika kept talking as if she hadn't heard him. "No one could kill Takeru-chan, not the monsters and not the bad people, either." She looked up from the body and into his eyes. "I believed that! I _knew_ that! Takeru-chan couldn't possibly die, he couldn't possibly lose! But..."

She continued, anger dripping into her tone like venom. "But if you were smart enough to kill Takeru-chan, then you're smart enough to fool me. And I won't let you! I won't let you trick me!" Sumika pulled up the gun, aiming it dead-center at Takeru's chest.

"Wait, Sumika!"

A grin, dead and humorless and full of pain. She shook her head slowly, but never let her gaze leave Takeru's face. "No, I won't wait. I'll kill you, Impostor-san, and then I'll kill myself."

Takeru knew, in that instant, that he'd failed. There was a sense of regret, shocking in and out of his chest in a blur, but even as the pain cut into him, he knew perfectly well what had to be done. He looked at Mitsuki, who had been lurking in a dark corner, and gave her the signal.

"Mitsuki, plan B!" He shouted.

Two gunshots, fired so quickly as to be nearly indistinguishable from one another, shattered the pervading silence. Sumika hadn't so much as a millisecond to react before a bullet shot through her right arm, shattering bone and destroying tissue. The second round bit through her lower leg and dropped her to the floor as she screamed in agony.

Still, even from the ground, she was bringing the machine gun up, aiming it directly at the now-exposed 2nd Lieutenant. Takeru moved reflexively, more out of an instinct he didn't know he had than any sense of direction, and kicked the gun from her hands. The machine gun flew through the air for all of a second before it slammed into the wall and fell to the ground.

Sumika stared at him for a moment, her face devoid of any emotion, before falling into unconsciousness.

"Damn." He muttered, his voice suddenly choked. "Why couldn't you have put the gun down, Sumika." His vision blurred strangely, and it took Takeru a moment to realize he was crying.

And suddenly, two strong hands grabbed him by the shoulders and turned him around. Mitsuki looked him in the eye and slapped him across the face. A shock of pain, white hot and brilliant, exploded across his face.

"Now's not the time to get emotional, Takeru! She's still alive, so you can still save her!"

Takeru's eyes widened, and for the briefest of moments, indignant anger surged through him. But the moment passed, and he buried his emotions deep into his subconscious mind. "You're right." He agreed. "Go see if that Eishi is still alive. I'm going to try and stabilize Sumika's condition before it's too late."

He crouched down beside Sumika's body, and as soon as he surveyed the damage, he cursed. The ulna and radius of her right arm were shattered, probably beyond repair, and her knee was looking no better. Bone fragments from her leg injury had probably cut through an artery or two, because the amount of blood leaking from her wounds was nothing short of astonishing.

On any other day or in any other room, she could have survived this easily. But the BETA had done a great amount of damage to the complex, and any chance of the medical equipment remaining functional was nil. Usable supplies would be far and few between down here, too, seeing as how it was a mostly abandoned residential sector.

 _Wait, it's a residential sector! That means there are functional bathrooms, blankets, and booze._ He thought, feeling a sense of renewed vitality.

Without so much as a pause, he dashed toward one of the empty bedrooms. He charged through the door, only making the barest of efforts to turn the knob, and began to rummage through the piles of cardboard boxes.

He threw one to the side, and it slammed against the wall with an audible crack. Takeru ignored it, and instead, pulled out a rolled bundle of thin blankets. Setting those aside, he dove back into the pile.

"C'mon, there's gotta be a case of whiskey or something around here, right?" He grunted in frustration.

A voice interrupted his search. "Liquor?" It asked, it's voice feminine.

Takeru looked up, and found himself facing a redheaded Eishi who looked very much worse for wear. "To use as disinfectant. Even if I stop her bleeding, she's dead if the wrong bacteria gets into her blood." Takeru explained as he looked back down to the unopened crates.

"Here. Take this." She said, pushing a lukewarm bottle of green liquid into his hands. "It's the UN's personal brand of alcoholic swill. Tastes like shit, but you've probably got bigger concerns, right?"

Takeru hummed quizzically. "Alcohol percentage?"

"Forty-five." She answered, her response short and to the point.

Gratefully, he took the plastic bottle and bundled up the blankets. "Thank you, Eishi. Now if you wouldn't mind drawing some ice cold water from the bathroom sink over there."

"Sure, but what do you need it for?" The Eishi asked.

"Not for me. Soak some cloth in the water and lay it on your friend's wounds. It should help with the swelling and bruising, and maybe relieve a bit of the pain." Takeru explained, growing more and more impatient.

"Alright. I'll get on it."

Takeru nodded, got to his feet, and dashed out the door. He ran back into the hallway and toward Sumika's unconscious body. Her condition was still dire, it seemed, and if she wasn't treated soon, she would certainly die. The blood running from her wounds had pooled into a slowly expanding circle around her, and she was thrashing wildly in her sleep.

What exactly made her so restless, he didn't know.

"Hang on, Sumika, I'll fix you up nice and good, I just need you to calm down." Takeru told her in the most reassuring voice he could manage.

He grabbed onto her thigh with one hand, stabilizing her body as best he could, and undid the liquor flask's cap with his mouth. As Takeru aimed the mouth of the cup over her gunshot wound, he realized that his hand was shaking uncontrollably.

"This is going to hurt pretty bad. I'm sorry, Sumika, and I hope to whatever gods are listening that you won't feel this in your sleep." He upended the bottle, dousing a full third of it's contents into the bleeding wound.

As soon as the alcohol touched the bleeding hole, Sumika screamed, loudly and horribly, her voice echoing through the vast corridors. Takeru bit his lip and stifled a sudden urge to kill something.

With a desperate scrabbling movement, he grabbed one of the blankets out of the pile and ripped it into usable strips. He wrapped the first around Sumika's knee, pressing as hard as he possibly could to stymie the bleeding. But every time he pushed, she screamed loud enough to wake a city. Again and again, he bound the wound, but every single time the blood soaked through and rendered yet another of his bandages useless.

"Dammit! At this rate, I'm gonna have to tourniquet the leg!" He growled, frustration piling onto his already frayed nerves.

Then, Takeru realized something that terrified him to no end. Sumika's eyes were fluttering open.

 _No, no, no! Stay asleep, Sumika! Go back to sleep, dammit!_ He thought frantically. _If she goes berserk right now-_

"Hey, hey, Sumika. I need you to go back to sleep, okay?"

"Takeru..chan?" She asked, her voice drowsy. "What's going on? And why's my body so numb?"

"Quiet now, Sumika. Just go back to sleep, alright. I'll tell you about it in the morning."

For a moment, she just looked at him, expressionless and unreadable. Then, she nodded slowly and closed her eyes again, lying back down. "Okay. I'll go back to sleep if that's what you want me to do, Takeru-chan."

Breathing a mental sigh of relief, he went back to her leg injury, and was relieved to see that the bleeding had slowed. Taking the second to last of his blanket-rags, he wrapped the wound and bound it shut as tightly as he could. And, as he was relieved to see, it didn't soak through moments afterward. Takeru turned his attention to the wound on her arm, and though it wasn't looking good, it still looked significantly less dicey than her knee.

 _Shattered bones, completely severed tendons, badly damaged muscle tissue._ He cataloged mentally, surveying all the visible damage.

It dawned on him that no matter what action he took, she was incredibly likely to lose the arm. He took what remained of the green alcohol and poured another third of it onto the wound. This time, Sumika didn't scream. Didn't so much as flinch, actually, which both concerned and relieved him. With that thought in mind, he took his last bandage and wrapped it tightly around her forearm, just above the wound. The tourniquet would staunch the blood loss, but she'd most likely need an amputation when all was said and done.

Takeru breathed a sigh of relief as the immediate threat passed. He went back to his pile of sheets and got to work on making more makeshift bandages. Within seconds, he'd created a whole new bundle of usable supplies. Immediately, he put them to use and wrapped additional cloth around Sumika's injuries, but not too tightly lest he restrict the blood flow.

Takeru thanked god that things had gone well and wiped off his sweat-soaked forehead, even if he only succeeded in getting it covered in blood. He turned back to Mitsuki, who was helping the redheaded Eishi in carrying the wounded soldier.

"Mitsuki, I've got her stabilized. How are things on your end?"

"Munakata's injured bad, but I'm at least sixty percent sure her vitals weren't ruptured. Isumi and I are gonna try and get her back to the hangar so we can signal HQ."

Takeru put up a hand, stopping them. "Hang on a sec. There's an infirmary not far from here. We can treat our wounds there while we wait for the UN to get here."

"Sounds like a good idea. You okay with that, 1st Lieutenant?" Mitsuki asked.

Isumi nodded in response. "Yeah. Lead the way, civilian."

Takeru smiled thinly. "My name's Shirogane Takeru, by the way."

"Well then, Shirogane, it's a pleasure to meet you. Wish it could have been under better circumstances."

"You and me both, 1st Lieutenant."

Takeru hoisted Sumika onto his back, holding her as tightly as he could, and started walking at a quick pace.

Mitsuki pouted. "Takeru~ How come you never address _me_ by rank?"

"Because the 1st Lieutenant never called me a lap-virgin." Takeru told her with all the bluntness of a baseball bat.

"Ah, is that a sore spot for you, Virgin-kun?"

"Mitsuki, I swear to god..." He trailed his voice and left the words unsaid, partly for effect and partly because he wasn't sure if he could be arrested for threatening UN personnel.

"Takeru's a virgin~!" She cooed in a voice that gave Takeru the sudden urge to commit a capital offense against a certain blue-haired Eishi.

He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and breathed out again. Then, he ignored the annoyingly childish woman and turned back to her superior, who was watching the exchange with a smirk on her face.

"Okay then, Isumi, can I ask you something?"

"Go ahead, Shirogane. Can't guarantee I have any answers, though."

Takeru cleared his throat and adjusted Sumika's position. "Why exactly did you guys get deployed? I forgot to ask Mitsuki earlier."

"Well why don't you ask her right now? She's standing right here, you know." She asked, amusement in her eyes.

"I'm sure you can guess." Takeru deadpanned. "Anyway, that sorta info isn't confidential or anything, right?"

"Oh no, not at all. We got deployed 'cause the overground sensors picked up your TSF's electronic signature battling a horde of BETA. Solo. Naturally, Commander Kouzuki-"

Takeru's heart caught in his throat for a moment. "Wait, Yuuko-sensei?! She's gotten caught up in this war too?!"

Isumi's expression took on a more serious look. "Did you know her before the Invasion?"

"Y-yeah. She was my homeroom teacher."

The 1st Lieutenant's eyes widened in surprise, and she came to a dead stop. Mitsuki protested loudly at the sudden brake. "Are you serious? She rose from the rank of rookie conscript to base commander in just a year?!" Her astonishment soon turned to something like admiration. "Oh damn, I knew she was a genius, but jeez, that's pretty damn incredible."

Takeru looked pensive. "So Yuuko-sensei's a soldier now? And not only that, but she's the one calling the shots?" He paused. "Can't say I'm all that surprised, honestly."

They came to the infirmary's code-locked blast door. Takeru pulled his access card from his boxer shorts, which had small pockets - for which he was duly grateful - and swiped it through the receiver. The doors opened with an airy swish, and the band of five stepped inside. Inside were two rows of sterile white cots, upon which they laid their injured.

"Hey, Isumi, you should probably get some shuteye. You're not looking much better than Munakata, if I'm being totally honest." Mitsuki told her.

"I think I can hold up for awhile longer, Hayase." Isumi waved her off.

"Wasn't really a choice, 1st Lieutenant. Now lay down before I knock you upside the head." She threatened playfully.

Takeru stepped between them, gesturing his hands placatingly. "Now now, don't go and hurt my patients, Mitsuki."

"Patients? You playing doctor now, Takeru?"

He shrugged. "I'm no doctor, but I'm pretty sure I've earned the right to boss you around a bit considering. So, I'm ordering you to treat Isumi as best you can, and make sure to follow my instructions."

She was silent for a few moments, likely debating whether or not she should say something snarky. Nevertheless, she agreed, if somewhat hesitantly.

Takeru smiled wanly. "Now if only she could be this obedient all the time." He turned back to Misae. Her armored suit was torn open down the chest, revealing a great number of dark bruises, as well as a few shallow wounds where the force had broken the skin. Judging by the size and color of the impact sights, and the amount of blood that had been streaming from her mouth and nostrils, it was safe to assume that she'd suffered more than a little damage to her bones.

The armored suit was a wonderful, revolutionary piece of technology with an insane amount of shock absorption, and there was no doubt that if she'd been wearing anything less, she'd have died outright. All the same, no amount of armor could stop fifty rounds from doing damage. And considering where she'd been shot and the lack of distance between the gun and her body, she'd be incredibly lucky if she would be able to walk after all was said and done.

"Not much we can do for internal injuries. Even less I can do for fractured bones without a full-body cast." Takeru mused. "Though it wouldn't hurt to get a few more sedatives in her."

He walked toward the medicine cabinet, grateful to find it fully stocked, and grabbed a handful of bluish pills. "Hey, Isumi, does the second lieutenant have any kind of history with addiction or drugs?"

She shook her head. "Misae's always been too busy flirting with other girls to bother with drugs."

"She swings that way?" Takeru asked curiously.

"That's what she says, anyway." Isumi answered ambiguously. "Though I think she just says that to scare away the guys."

"Is that so?" He asked rhetorically as he powdered a couple of the sedation tablets.

"Mm." Isumi hummed. "If you ask me, I think she's got a lover back home."

"Then what's the harm in telling people that?" Takeru mixed the powder into a small vial of water, and filled a syringe with it. "It'd probably have the same effect as pretending to be a lesbian, right?"

Isumi shrugged. "Not sure, really. Maybe she just doesn't like being seen as a romantic?" She watched as Takeru filled the syringe. "Hey, is it really necessary to put her on sedatives? She already looks pretty unconscious, and don't those kinds of drugs usually have nasty side effects?"

Takeru nodded hesitantly. "Yeah, they do. However, if she wakes up while we're carrying her taking her to an actual hospital or something, it could cause even more damage. Chances are she's got a badly fractured spine and rib cage, so I'd rather not make it worse."

"I guess that makes sense." She conceded.

He inserted the syringe into her arm after cutting through the armored suit with scissors. It was almost astonishing how easy it was, like cutting through a plastic sheet. Takeru pushed down the stopper and pumped the syringe's contents into her bloodstream.

"Done and done. Mitsuki, go prepare a stretcher for when we have to leave."

She sighed in response. "I hate listening to a Lap-virgin of all people." She sighed again. "If it was anyone but Munakata on that cot..." She grumbled. "Fine." Acquiescently, Mitsuki walked off into the attached supply closet to look for a stretcher.

Takeru grinned at her and gave her the thumbs up. "Good job, Mitsuki-chan! You're being a very good girl today!"

In response, she shot him her middle finger. "Bite me, Takeru."

Laughing, he got up and walked back to the chemistry station. He dumped what remained of the serum and looked thoughtfully at the rest of the pill bottles. _When those UN transports get here, there's a damn good chance I'm going to get on with them. Might be a good idea to get on their good side._

"Isumi, are you guys stocked up on medical supplies back at your HQ?"

"I wouldn't know. I'm not a logistics officer or a doctor, so I really have no idea. Couldn't hurt though, right? And if you're offering, I'm buying."

"Alright, sounds good." He grabbed a box, a long orange case with a bright red cross stenciled on the middle, and filled it to the brim with as many varieties of pills as he could manage. "Ah right, that reminds me. You've made contact with your headquarters by now, right? When's their transport gonna get here?"

She was silent for a moment, as if debating whether or not it was appropriate to tell him. After a moment's deliberation, she responded, "When I sent my report, Commander Kouzuki insisted on sending a full complement of crewmen and soldiers, so it might take awhile."

Takeru frowned. "Sounds like a reclamation team. You think Yuuko-sensei's gonna try and take this place?"

"Does that bother you?" She asked curiously.

He shook his head and sat down at the edge of Sumika's cot. From the corner of his eye, he observed her and hoped she wouldn't worsen in the time it took for the UN transports to arrive. "No, it doesn't. I may have been living here for five months, but I've got no real love for this place. However, I can't say the others will say the same."

Isumi nodded, putting a hand to her chin in the classic pose of deep thinking. "That's right. You did say something about this being a family shelter." She paused. "Do you remember who paid for this place?"

"Mm." He hummed. "Sumika's family had always been rich, especially before the Invasion. I think her father had this place built himself the moment the BETA touched down, so it's probably his own private property."

"So he won't take kindly to the UN seizing the facility, then?"

"Nope. I can't say if he'd actively fight back or anything, but you'd have to deal with him if you wanted to take the complex."

Takeru eyed the rough bandages on Sumika's arm and leg, wishing he could've replaced them with something nicer. As it stood, though, he was afraid to even touch her injuries, let alone redress them, lest they start spewing blood again.

He paused and reflected. "Hey, what would Yuuko-sensei even want with a place like this, anyway?"

She shrugged. "I can't say for sure. Maybe she wants another forward operating base to expand her sphere of influence? Maybe she wants more space to conduct research? Hell, maybe she just wants to turn it into a warehouse. Who can say what goes on in the mind of a genius?"

"So you don't know?"

She sighed wistfully. "No. I don't know anything. Maybe if I were to climb the ranks a little bit more..." She sighed again, this time a little bit less sadly. "Ah, but you probably don't want to have to hear about all my problems, do you?"

A light smile on his face, Takeru shook his head. "Guess I'll have to pass on that." He stood up. "Thanks for the info, 1st Lieutenant. I should probably see what I can do about Sumika's condition."

At the mention of Sumika's name, Isumi winced painfully. It was a small and tiny movement, barely perceptible to the naked eye, but Takeru caught it all the same. And it worried him.

 _Sumika, you're in a whole lotta trouble... attacking two UN Eishi, and with a machine gun no less. Even if I get you out of this base in one piece, I doubt the military's gonna let you go unscathed._ He was worried about her, and he didn't hide it either. _If all they do is imprison you, we'll have gotten off lucky._

He squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep breath. _Wait four seconds, exhale. Breath in,wait four seconds, exhale._

A sense of calmness, if not quite relaxation, came over him. Takeru opened his eyes and looked over Sumika one last time.

"You're probably going to lose the leg too if I can't get the UN to cough up a few replacement bones." Flares of pain erupted in his forehead, and he rubbed at them futilely. "Today's just been too damn stressful for me."

Takeru stretched his shoulders. "Hey, Isumi, I'm gonna take a nap in one of those cots. Wake me up when the UN gets here."

She stopped him. "Maybe you should take a shower first. Don't wanna let BETA blood dry on your skin; it takes forever to get that stuff out."

He sketched off a rough salute. "Roger." Takeru walked out of the infirmary. His room wasn't too far from there, so it wasn't really a long walk, not to mention it probably would have been wise to warn Sumika's family about the incoming UN transports on his way back.

Coming to a stop at his door, he pulled his access card, now frayed at the edges from the rough treatment he - and by nature of being attached to him, the card - had suffered throughout the day, and swiped it through the receiver. The door opened effortlessly and he walked inside, passing over the mountains of detritus and clutter left from his previously idyllic life.

Yet, even as his eyes passed over the things he was about to lose - and make no mistake, the minute he boarded one of those UN transports, he would never be able to return to his life here – he felt no remorse. He was glad to rid his hands of it all, glad to finally have some semblance of control over himself. This final act, he mused, would be him washing away his past. When he cleaned off the blood and dirt, he'd be reborn. He'd have a fresh start.

He grabbed a towel off his dresser and walked into the bathroom.

* * *

Sumika was awoken by a thunderous noise, louder and heavier than anything she'd ever heard before. Her eyes slit open, and immediately, fiery orange light flooded her retinas. "Takeru-chan?" She groaned as she roused into wakefulness. "Where are you?"

A hand dropped onto her head, and though she couldn't see whose it was, that warmth and texture was unmistakable. "Right here, Sumika. Right here."

She tried to open her eyes again, and this time, she found that it was a little easier. She tried to look into the bright orange glow, and when she found she couldn't, she settled for looking directly above it.

"What... what's that light, Takeru-chan?"

He chuckled. "It's the sun, Sumika."

She frowned, partly because she felt that Takeru was making fun of her, and partly because she felt stupid for not knowing that off the bat.

"Was it always this bright?"

Takeru ruffled her hair a bit harder, and she found she quite liked the feeling. If only he could be this gentle all the time.

"Of course it was, Sumika. It's just been awhile since you've been able to see it. Since we've been up here."

Sumika fell silent, just looking at the sun. _Was it always this pretty, too, Takeru-chan?_ She wondered. _Did it always feel so warm?_

She had a million questions, but she also knew that it would be bothersome for Takeru if she tried to ask all of them at once. So, she settled for just one.

"Where are we, Takeru-chan?" Sumika asked, her voice carrying an innocence that Takeru had missed dearly these past few hours.

"We're flying, Sumika." He told her simply. "We're going to go a new place, you and me."

"What's it like?"

Takeru smiled down at her, his face sliding into her vision. "I don't know, Sumika, I really don't know." He stroked her hair. "But we'll be going there together."

She smiled. "Then I don't care what it's like. As long as you're there, Takeru-chan." She told him, her voice childlike and innocent in it's sincerity.

She was laying on a hard cot, a military-grade blanket draped around her. The cold November wind was biting, doubly so considering they were in the air, but as Takeru rubbed her head in lazy circles and watched over her from his chair, Sumika felt warmer than ever. Watching the scenery fly by, she felt content for the first time in a long while.

For the time being, there were no more nightmares, no more dreams, no more strange, hazy visions of Takeru dying in horrible and brutal ways. She was calm, she was happy.

"Hey, Sumika?" Takeru spoke up, his voice only barely audible over the helicopter's engines.

"Yes, Takeru-chan?"

"Do you remember anything from a couple hours ago? When we were... down there, in the shelter?" His voice was edged with concern, but over the roaring noise, Sumika caught none of it.

"No." She answered honestly. "I remember going to sleep in my bed, and now we're here."

Takeru's hand froze. "I... see." He muttered.

"Is something wrong, Takeru-chan?" She asked, her tone shifting into worry.

He shook his head. "No, no, of course not. I'm just wondering why you don't seem to be confused at all. I mean, this has got to be a shock to you, right Sumika?"

"Nope. Not at all. I mean, sure, it's confusing and weird, but as long as you're here, I won't have to worry. You'll always protect me, after all, Takeru-chan. Why do I need to be scared if you're with me?"

 _She really is overdependent on me. It's... unhealthy._

"Right, Takeru-chan? You're always gonna protect me, right?"

Despite how worried he felt inside, he put a fake smile on his face and hit the top of her head with the flat of his palm. "Idiot. That should go without saying."

Normally, she would have responded with a loud 'Owwie!' at this point, and perhaps took it upon herself to hit him back, but at the moment, she only leaned toward him, grinning like an idiot. "I don't know why, Takeru-chan, but I'm really happy right now!" She said cheerfully.

"That's good." He said absently, stuck in his own thoughts.

 _Sumika, what would happen if I ever died out there? Would you be able to survive without me? What about your sanity? You're a loose cannon right now, and I can't just let that be._

"I really like the view from up here. All the trees and mountains look really tiny right now."

"I'm glad to hear that, Sumika."

 _Maybe I should ask Yuuko-sensei about this? I don't remember her ever teaching a psychology class, but she might be able to help._

"There are birds, too, Takeru-chan. I haven't seen any of those since before the Invasion."

"Mhm." Takeru hummed.

 _No, no. I shouldn't trouble Yuuko-sensei with this. She's leading an entire military base now, and she can't spare the time to deal with this. But who else can I go to? Do they even have psychiatrists over there?_

"Hey, Takeru-chan..." She paused, biting her lip. "I love you. I really, really love you. So much that it hurts."

His eyes widened in surprise, and as if out of reflex, he stood up from his seat. "H-huh? Sumi...ka?"

The helicopter came to a stop, hitting the ground with a heavy clank of metal. Directly afterward, a squad of ground personnel came to the landing pad and approached the transport helicopter. They undid the iron buckles holding Sumika's cot in place and lowered the ramp.

"Sumika, did you just-"

They rolled the cot off the helicopter and pushed it toward the doors of the base.

"Bye-bye, Takeru-chan."

Sumika gave him an lonely wave with her left hand, a deeply sad, forlorn look in her eye. The ground crew continued to push her cot until they entered the base, bending round a corner and disappearing from Takeru's sight.

Takeru stood in the rapidly quieting chopper, his hand outstretched and his jaw ever so slightly opened. Shocked, he remained frozen in place for several seconds before his mind fully registered what had just happened, and what was _going_ to happen.

Sumika had confessed to him, and at the most inopportune moment possible.

In a very short amount of time, Sumika was going to be tried and executed for her crimes.

The feeling receded within a few moments, and Takeru stepped off the helicopter as calmly as he could. Every fiber of his being, every nerve in his body, was screaming at him, telling him to _fucking run_ before it was too late. But he resisted that urge, because he knew that if he gave in to it, he'd get nowhere.

He had to find Yuuko-sensei. He just had to, and when he did, he had to face her with a clear head and without any emotional baggage. She was the only chance Sumika had, the only chance _he_ had, and if he squandered it by being too rash, Takeru would never forgive himself.

So, with that in mind, he approached the guard in front of the base's entrance. With the most sickeningly polite, most relaxed tone of voice he could have possibly managed, Takeru asked,

"Where is Commander Kouzuki's office?"

* * *

 **AN**

No reviews or anything to respond to. That makes me sad.

Anyway, I feel like being a shameless whore at the moment, so if you guys like what you've been reading, I ask that you leave a review, a follow, a favorite, anything really. I mean, it's not like I feel underappreciated, but... my ego could do with some stroking. Pretty please?


	4. Intro Arc, C4

**AN**

Jeez, I wrote chapter five in like, an hour and a half. Just, non-stop. It's mostly action and combat, which is probably why it got done so fast, meaning I can post this chapter a day after my last update.

By the way, I post updates when I get done writing. I can't promise they'll always be this fast or this regular, so fair warning.

But seriously, holy shit. I had _so_ much fun writing chapter five. Can't wait to share it with you guys. *pointless egoistic stroking*

* * *

The door to Yuuko's office slid open without resistance, and a hurried but light set of footfalls trailed into the room. With a chagrined expression on her face, Yuuko turned toward the noise, a flare of irritation lighting up in her voice once more.

"Again, Yoroi-san? What do you want this-" As soon she saw the mans face, she fell into an immediate silence, the barest spark of surprise running through her. "Ah? Shirogane? It's been a long time since I've seen you in my office. Could this be about the chemistry homework you 'forgot' two years ago?" She asked sardonically.

Slowly, solemnly, he nodded in agreement. "I only wish I was seeing you for something as carefree and stupid as homework, Yuuko-sensei." He said, voice low and sad. "This is about Sumika."

Yuuko feigned ignorance. "Sumika? She's here too? Tell me, how _is_ she?"

Takeru felt an amount of his patience snap, and he quelled a sudden urge to throttle his old science teacher. "Please, Yuuko-sensei, don't play dumb. I know you're this base's XO."

"Oh?" She hummed speculatively. "And pray tell, who told you that? I can't imagine you learned it down in that shelter of yours, hiding away from reality."

He shook his head. "It's not exactly a well-hidden piece of information, Yuuko-sensei. Does it matter how I learned it?"

She leveled a look of icy calculation on him, her gaze piercing through every layer of Takeru's resolve. For several seconds, Yuuko assessed him, trying to glean as much as she could from his expression. And yet, his face was an unreadable mask, impenetrable and stoic, and she saw nothing but the most superficial of information.

"I see." She muttered to herself. "You've grown, haven't you Shirogane? I wonder where you learned to hide your emotions so well..." Yuuko pondered to herself, tapping her fingers together.

Takeru redirected the conversation. "As much as I appreciate the praise, I need to talk to you about Sumika." He told her bluntly, not bothering to beat around the bush. "Sumika attacked two UN officers, I know that. But all the same, I want you to stop the execution."

"And what makes you think she'll be executed?" She asked in turn.

Takeru paused. "Call it intuition."

"Hm?" She hummed as she pulled open a desk drawer. She pulled out a single white document, filled to the margin with text. "Well, Shirogane, your instincts are right this time. Here's the report Isumi sent me, feel free to read it."

Cautiously, he slid the document toward himself and picked it up. Skimming the text, he focused on the keywords and filtered out the jargon.

 _Assault with intent to kill... capital offense... sustained severe injuries..._ He tallied, growing paler with every word. _Sumika..._ He thought as a feeling of hopelessness crawled it's way up his throat.

"Wait a second..." He muttered. "Request lenient sentencing?" He read, at once both surprised and relieved. "That can't be right."

"Mm. It just so happens that you did read that right, Shirogane." Yuuko told him, the corner of her lips down-turned in an expression of displeasure. "I'm just as surprised as you are, in fact." She remarked.

"Why?" Takeru asked, putting the paper back on the desk.

"Because Isumi usually isn't this lax when it comes to punishment. She's never been the type to go easy on criminals, even if they only committed minor felonies." Yuuko paused. "Which is why I'm so baffled. She and Munakata were attacked, brought to the brink of death even, and all she wants is twenty years of incarceration?"

Takeru winced. It appeared his and her definitions of 'lax' were pretty damn different.

"Well, what would _you_ suggest, Yuuko-sensei?"

She leaned back into her chair, hand at her chin. "A summary execution." She said harshly, her tone severe and final. "Kagami may have been my student once upon a time, but I can't tolerate an attempted murder. Not on my best soldiers."

 _Execution..._

Anger rose up like a boiling tide, sweeping through the entirety of Takeru's mind and nearly taking his composure with it. Yet, some faraway voice, coming not from his own body but another world entirely removed from this one, told him to hold steady. So he did. He remained silent, regulating his breathing and holding his patience with an iron grip. And slowly, very slowly, the bright crimson wave receded and his mind cleared.

"I... see." He said after a time. "And what about a trial? What about the due process?"

Yuuko shook her head, almost regrettably. "Times have changed, Shirogane. Ever since the BETA invaded, the lawyers have been drafted and the courtrooms have been turned into munitions stockpiles. No one has time for a trial of peers."

Takeru was actually rather pleased to hear this, though he hid it behind a layer of impassivity. "So you're the only one presiding over her punishment, then?"

She raised an eyebrow. "If I'm not mistaken, you're plotting something, Shirogane. I've had that same expression on my face before; I can recognize a schemer when I see one."

A small smile creased Takeru's face. "Answer the question please, Yuuko-sensei."

Yuuko sighed. "I'm not obligated to give you any answers, Shirogane. In case you've forgotten, you're standing in the heart of _my_ stronghold. Giving me orders may not be in your best interest." She paused. "And neither would threatening me, for that matter."

Slowly, so maddeningly slowly, he put his hands in front of him defensively. "No, of course not. I wouldn't be _that_ stupid. But, if I said it was for old times' sake, would you answer my question then?" He smirked deviously. "More specifically, _that_ time."

To his own twisted delight, Yuuko flinched. "That's a dirty, dirty move, Shirogane. I'll admit you've never been ugly, and if I was going to fuck anyone, I'd rather it be you than some stranger, but... You and I were both drunk at the time, and I'd hoped you wouldn't remember.

"I've never been drunk enough to completely forget anything." He said flatly. "You said the same thing to me once, Yuuko-sensei."

"Using my own words against me. I'm impressed."

"Impressed enough to answer my questions?" He probed, immediately drawing her back to the topic at hand.

She said nothing and tapped her fingers on her desk idly, hoping to drum some sort of reaction out of him through her inactivity. To her combined irritation and pleasure, he was completely stoic. "Very well. I'll answer three questions of yours. Choose wisely." She said, giving him a tantalizingly limitless offer.

Yuuko knew on some level that it wasn't at all wise to give _anyone_ , least of all of a strangely mature Shirogane such a blank check. And yet, on a deeper, more subconscious part of her mind, she was curious to see what he'd do with what she'd put in front of him. Would he force her to reveal confidential information, having only used Sumika as a ploy to gain her attention? Would he blindly follow his emotions, forgetting the bigger picture entirely in the face of his own selfish desires?

With the strange paradigm shift that seemed to have taken place in the psyche of her former student, there truly was no way to predict what he'd do. That lack of control bothered her, which was why she'd acquiesced to him in the first place. Of course, if he did turn out to be a spy of some kind who was only after data, she'd shoot him on the spot.

"Well, Shirogane? I've given you an offer, so what are you going to do with it?" She asked, faking a tone of impatience. A tone that was just petulant enough to give him an incentive to speak, but not enough to grate on his nerves. She was no psychologist, but manipulating people was easy enough, and if she could force an answer from him without giving him time to think or strategize, she'd have been able to see his true motives.

"Three answers, eh?" He muttered. "Alright, I'll take you up on that offer."

He closed his fist and stuck up one finger.

"First. How deep does your control over this base run?"

Yuuko frowned. _An easy, surface-level question. If he has some kind of ulterior motive, I won't be able to glean it from just this alone._

"I have full administrative power." She answered. "If I ordered the immediate destruction of this facility, the UN would have no choice but to comply. If I wanted the lunch menus to consist of nothing but rice gruel and water, the logistical officers would fulfill that whim to the letter. If I declared someone a traitor, no matter how high their rank is or how well liked they may be, this entire base would hunt them down." She rested her head in her palm. "Does that answer your question?"

Takeru nodded. "Very much so."

"Glad to hear it. Now, as to your second...?"

"Now now, Yuuko-sensei. Patience is a virtue, don't be so hasty." Takeru said, a sickeningly reserved smile on his face.

Irritation. That was the emotion she felt at the moment. All the same, she refused to let something as petty and inconsequential as her feelings affect what she said. "Patience may be a virtue, Shirogane, but you understand that I'm the one making the offer here. You're in no position to demand things."

"True, very true, but you did agree to answer my questions, no strings attached. I can trust that you're a woman of your word, can't I?"

Yuuko sighed a bit harder than normal. _I can see what you're trying to do here, Shirogane. Riling me up to loosen my tongue._ She stretched her shoulders. _If I don't stop him here, you'll become yet another Yoroi Sakon._ And, as she wholeheartedly agreed, the world could do with as few Sakons as possible.

"Emotional manipulation doesn't suit, you, Shirogane." She said bluntly.

Faking an expression of dismay, he deadpanned, "I've been seen through."

"Indeed you have." Yuuko agreed sarcastically. "Now, if you would kindly get to the point?"

"Alright, sure. My second question. What's your favorite type of coffee drink?"

This time, the irritation returned in full. Yuuko felt indignant, almost angry, but with merciless efficiency she buried those feelings somewhere deep in her head, where they'd be unlikely to resurface. All this mental fortitude, she'd learned herself. One conversation with Yoroi Sakon and his infuriating method of speech had been enough to teach her the value of controlling her emotions.

"Shirogane, if you're going to treat this lightly, then I have no time for-"

"Yuuko-sensei." He said, his tone deep and authoritative. "Answer the question."

Sighing, she sank her head deeper into her hands. "Cappuccino. I would've thought you'd know that, Shirogane."

"Oh, I did, Yuuko-sensei. I was just wondering if _you_ knew." He answered cryptically.

She bit back a sound of confusion. "Well, it just so happens I _do_ know what my own favorite drink is." She said sarcastically. "Well, Shirogane, you've wasted two questions for worthless answers. What's your third?"

He rolled his shoulders, listening to the satisfying popping sound of his tensed shoulders. "Alright, Yuuko-sensei. Here goes."

"I'm listening."

"What do you need me to do?"

* * *

 _One hour later_

Mitsurugi Meiya was the daughter of one of the few remaining Zaibatsu families that still held power in the post-BETA Japan. She stood in the hangar of Yokohama Base, clad in a uniform that felt far too comfortable and far too light to have been made from normal cotton. Hand-sown from a carbon-fiber weave, she speculated. Made from superior materials, despite her own desire to have gear no better than the average recruit's.

Her entire stay had been like this. Differential treatment from the staff and her peers alike, despite her repeated insistence that she wanted nothing more than to be normal. A private room stocked with officer-grade luxuries, despite only being a mere cadet. A specialized cafeteria menu filled with non-synthetic food, for her and her alone. A custom-built training TSF, a Takemikazuchi, delivered straight to the hangar for her to use.

It sickened her. It made her angry and sad and lonely, all at once. She'd said time and time again that she wanted no advantages, that she wanted to be just like everyone else. And yet, for once in her life, she didn't get what she desired. At what was arguably the most important moment, she was denied the only thing she truly wanted.

Normality.

Leaning against the platform's railing and watching the hangar crew down below doing their job, she hoped for change for the umpteenth time. Meiya understood that her being allowed to join the UN military was a huge concession on her family's part, and that her survival was their top concern, thus necessitating all the special treatment, but all the same, she was bothered by the pampering.

How was she supposed to gain an understanding of the world, of the soldiers' plights, when she couldn't even use the same equipment as them? How was she supposed to empathize with her comrades when she wasn't even in the same training programs as them?

Suddenly, she was greeted by a strange sight. A man, dressed in the standard regulation black armored suit, walked purposefully down the pathway toward the launching bay. What made her look twice was the gear he carried; a large dark bag at his back and a long dufflebag in his right hand. His suit was decked to the nines with tactical harnesses, pouches, bandoleers, and satchels as well.

TSF pilots rarely brought that much gear with them, seeing as how most engagements were short, several hour-long affairs that required little in the way of added provisions. However, the amount of supplies carried in those bags must have equaled to several days, if not weeks worth of food. Whatever mission he was deploying on, it was certainly going to be a long one.

Yet, it wasn't what the pilot carried that caught her attention. It was the pilot himself.

 _Takeru_. It was him, it had to be. Meiya's heart sped up as emotions ran through her chest, fast as quicksilver. She wanted to walk toward him, to _run_ toward him, but traitorous fear rose up in her chest as a thousand questions bombarded her.

 _What if he doesn't recognize me? What if he's not the boy I used to love? What if he has someone else?_ But most of all, _What if he dies on this mission?_

So, even as her heart told her to go, her mind told her with even more force that she had to stay. It pained her greatly, seeing him just walk by, but she knew it would have been foolhardy to open herself to him now. It had been many years, somewhere around a decade if she remembered right, since she'd last seen him. While she remembered him fondly and held a great deal of confusing feelings for him, there was very little guarantee that he felt the same.

"Goodbye, Takeru. I hope I'll see you again." She whispered sadly. "Good luck on your mission."

* * *

Takeru set his bags to the side of the terminal and stood at the TSF calibration terminal. He cracked his knuckles and tensed his arms as he waited for the command prompts to display. Then, a mechanic, grease-stained and rough looking, shouted at him from across the platform.

"Hey! Don't mess with that! If you mess up the engine tuning, it'll take hours to fix it again!" He yelled angrily.

Takeru held up a hand and looked him in the eye, a dead serious look on his face. "I know what I'm doing, sir. This isn't the first time I've modified a TSF." Something in his tone of voice screamed authority, and the mechanic backed down.

Exasperation abated, at least for the time being, he asked cautiously, "Well, alright, but what sorta mods were you thinking of makin'?"

The terminal lit up blue and the first command prompt opened. Takeru began to type. "Just going to disable the automated protocols and heighten the controls' sensitivity. Maybe hyper-optimize the knife sheathe, too."

 _I'll also be installing Yuuko-sensei's shady software, but he doesn't need to know that._

He scratched his head and shrugged. "Might not be the best idea, you know. Those programs exist for a reason..." Just before he trailed into silence, a light-bulb seemed to go off above his head. "And what are you thinking, trying to mess with the sheathe. Might be cool to launch knives like missiles, but if you take out your machine's leg accidentally, you'll wish you hadn't bothered."

"They're a crutch. I need to be able to make my own maneuvers on the field without auto-prots slowing me down. Not mention how dangerous it is to execute override codes mid-battle." He explained as he hit the enter key. "And as for the sheathe, well, there are times when you need the range." He said, not really explaining anything.

Quelled, the mechanic leaned against the wall, no longer angry, but rather, concerned. "You seem to know what you're doing, I'll give you that much at least." His eyes lingered on the two large bags at Takeru's feet. "Why do you have all the supplies?"

Takeru stepped back from the machine, stretching his arms for a moment. "I asked Commander Kouzuki to give me a mission. I'll be out solo for awhile, so food's probably gonna be at a premium." He lied.

The mechanic's eyes widened in surprise. "God, you're doing one of the Commander's missions of your own free will? And solo, too?!" After the briefest of pauses, he continued. "Now what in the name of hell makes you want to die all of a sudden?"

"Is they really that bad?"

Nodding furiously, he continued. "Hell yeah they are. Commander's mission might as well be a synonym for suicide around here. You'd have a better chance of surviving if you went hand-to-hand with a Tank-class."

Whistling appreciatively, Takeru asked, "So, give me a rough estimate. What's the survival rating for these special missions?"

"Ah, shit, well..." He paused and thought for awhile. "If I were to give you my best guess, I'd have to say somewhere around twenty percent."

Takeru grinned. "Hey, that's better than I thought." He finished typing the last command prompt and hit the enter key. With a smooth, soundless movement completely befitting a well-maintained machine, the type-94 Shiranui's cockpit opened with ease. "Wish me luck, mechanic-san!"

The mechanic saluted. "Don't die out there, Eishi!"

Takeru laughed. "Hey, c'mon now. A couple thousand BETA aren't gonna drop me!" He replied cheekily as he threw both his bags and then himself into the TSF. Moments later, the doors closed on him and his engines came online, blazing into life with a satisfying roar.

"Besides, I can't die." He said, much more quietly this time, as he slipped his hands into the controls. "Because I've got a girl to save."

 _Cameras online... Radar online... Communications array online..._

Yuuko's voice broke out over the intercom, completely drowning out the electric hum of the machinery. "Indeed you do, Shirogane." She said in a serious voice. "Do you need me to brief you on the mission again?"

He shook his head. "Nope. I got it."

"Are you absolutely sure? Once you reach the site, the connection's going to get spotty, so I won't be able to talk to you."

"I'm one hundred percent certain of what I have to do. Fight my way up to the Sadogashima hive, hook the parachute to the box, and throw the thing right down the Monument's launching shaft. Should be easy enough."

Yuuko sighed. "Something makes me think you're not taking this seriously..." Her voice trailed for a moment. "Well, never mind then. If you fail, Kagami Sumika dies, so, do this job right."

"Of course I will. Have some faith, Yuuko-sensei."

Without another word, Yuuko cut off the transmission, leaving Takeru to his thoughts. It would be a fairly long while before he reached the transport ferry, so he'd have plenty of time to wait in boredom.

He leaned back into his chair and released one hand from the controls, massaging his tensed muscles. His shoulders were still stiffened, he realized, from his visit to Yuuko's office.

It had been a stressful one, alright. Manipulating people had never really been his cup of tea, and he'd have rather just asked her straight out if there was any way to gain her favor. But he didn't. There were things he had to ascertain first, because as the faraway voice told him in it's wordless whisper, it would have been colossally stupid to reveal his cards straight out.

Takeru couldn't have just asked for a mission outright; it would have made her suspicious of him. Then there were also two major things he had to confirm. First, whether or not she would have actually had the power to waive away Sumika's punishment. Second, whether or not she was still human enough to want to do so. Hence his first two questions.

Though, in hindsight, maybe asking her about cappuccinos wasn't the greatest way of learning the second bit. The heartless, the psychotic, and the merciless alike still enjoyed coffee, no matter the state of their minds. But with that said, he figured he'd done a decent job of it, and he'd even managed to gain a chance at saving Sumika.

"Ah, but dammit, couldn't she have given me something a bit easier?" Takeru groaned, mostly out of humor. "A lone-wolf clearing mission would have been one thing, but assaulting a hive is just plain suicidal." Then, he slapped himself in the face, hard. "Nope, don't think that way. If you get depressed now, you'll never summon up the courage to actually get this done." _Think positive, think positive._

In keeping with that theme, he reassessed his odds. The mission was going to be difficult, extremely so, but it wasn't impossible. If he could keep the noise level low, cap his engine emissions, and avoid burning his thrusters, he might just be able to stay under the radar long enough to reach the Monument. Keyword being might.

 _Escape is gonna be a bit tricky, though._ He thought lightly. _I might even take a scratch or two on the way out._ Takeru laughed weakly at himself. He knew it was stupid to try and pretend, especially when there was no one else around to see it, but he also knew that he had to have _something_ to cling to, lest he end up floundering in panic and depression.

If that something just so happened to be false bravado, then so be it. What else did he have to rely on?

The fields and hills gradually came to a slow, receding end, replaced instead by the mostly abandoned towns and farmlands of the south Japanese coastline. BETA had invaded this place from Sadogashima, and though they were for the most part repelled, they'd slowly but surely managed to kill, devour, or scare off the entirety of the indigenous population. The only life, be it human or otherwise, to be found here were trees, shrubs, and the occasional patrolling soldier.

Within a few more minutes, Takeru managed to spot the corpses of a few BETA, mostly Warriors and Soldiers, being burnt to a crisp by a mixed team of UN and Imperial soldiers. It was a relatively small battlefield, only holding about three dozen bodies, none of them TSF or infantry, but all the same it was proof. Proof of the near-constant struggle the soldiers faced in keeping the borders safe.

Takeru's TSF came to a halt as it reached the port. A ferry-boat, about as large as most aircraft carriers, stood waiting in the harbor. He stepped into the registry section and dismounted from the cockpit, leaving his bags where they were. Climbing down the shoulder and arm, just like Mitsuki did earlier, he landed on the ground and faced the young-faced receptionist below.

"On a solo op?" The blonde receptionist asked. "I don't envy you, I'll tell you that. Sadogashima's rough. Real rough. Can't imagine what kinda commander would send you out alone like that. Bound to be a suicide run." She said tactlessly. "Er, I mean, a real hard mission."

Takeru flashed the girl a winning smile. "Gotta earn your paycheck somehow, right?" He passed her his ID, which she put in the scanner.

"Shirogane Takeru?"

"That's me."

She passed back the card and hit a button. The large gates that led into the harbor opened, rusty metal screeching horrifically as it did. The receptionist winced, and Takeru gave her a sympathetic look.

"Ugh, I hate that sound." She muttered. "Anyway, good luck on your mission, Shirogane-kun. Get back here in one piece, alright?"

He laughed heartily. "If there's a pretty girl like you waiting for me? Of course I will." Takeru walked back to his TSF, climbed up the knee, and mounted the cockpit.

The doors closed behind him and he slipped his hands into the controls. Walking through the gate with slow, ponderous steps, he moved past the reception and into the harbor. And within that shipyard was a whole lotta silence. Whether it was out of anxiety or out of genuine worry, he checked his gear again, making sure he had everything he needed for the mission to come.

 _Twelve knives, two swords, one rifle, one S-11..._ He listed as he looked over the data logs. _And a fuck-ton of fuel._

He boarded the ferry slowly and carefully, trying to make sure he didn't damage something important. His TSF came to a slow stop as he stepped onto the deck, and Takeru powered down the engine.

"Alright then. Let's see if I can get some shut-eye before we get this thing started." He said as he opened up the cockpit. "Sometimes I forget that it's only been eight hours since this whole thing started."

Once he got his feet on the deck, he greeted the mechanics with a small grin. "Hey there. Would you mind getting my fuel tanks topped off while I catch some shut-eye? Both me and my machine need to be in top condition when this op gets started."

One of the mechanics nodded. "Yeah, sure. I'll start hooking up the pumps."

"Great, wonderful. I'll be in the crew quarters if you want something." Takeru said cheerfully as he walked off. "Thanks again, guys."

Once he reached the bunk room, he picked a cot at random and collapsed into it, all the strength leaving his body immediately.

"It feels like forever has passed since I woke up this morning." He groaned. "I'd hoped just one nap would be enough, dammit."

Takeru threw up his arm, covering his eyes from the suddenly glaring overhead light. He turned on his side and faced the wall, burying his face in the hardened white pillow. Slipping his eyelids closed, he counted to ten and back down repeatedly, lulling his mind into complacency.

 _Good night, universe. Please don't bother me._ He thought drowsily. _'Cause I fucking hate distractions._

* * *

Mitsuki stormed into Yuuko's office, anger present both on her face and in her body language. "What the hell, Kouzuki?!" She shouted furiously.

Yuuko, who was sitting in her chair and writing equations, looked up impatiently. "Ah, 2nd Lieutenant Hayase. What brings you here?" She asked in that annoyingly cold voice she knew Mitsuki hated.

"You know what this is about, Commander. Why'd you send him out on another mission, dammit?! He was only here for _two hours_!"

Drumming her fingers on her desk, Yuuko smiled patronizingly at the soldier in front of her. "My my, aren't we getting emotional."

Mitsuki bit back a sudden urge to slam her hands on the desk, and instead reeled back her emotions, no matter how difficult it was or how angry it made her feel. "He's just a kid. He's not ready for this."

"The 'kid' is only three years younger than you, Hayase. And whether or not he's ready is something for _me_ to decide, not you, wouldn't you say?" She asked rhetorically. "And besides, it isn't like you to get emotional over a person like this."

"Takeru's different!" She protested. "If it were some other Eishi, I'd understand. But dammit, he hasn't even been officially drafted yet. Do you even have the authority to send him out like this?" Her voice was uneven and high-pitched, proof of her wavering control.

"My authority is absolute, Hayase. You know this, don't you?"

"Goddammit, Kouzuki. I don't know what kind of mission you sent him on, but why'd you make him do it alone? TSFs operate in two-man elements; if he goes alone, he'll get chewed up in no time."

"Don't patronize me, Hayase. I know what I did." She sighed. "Truth be told, I don't know whether he'll live or die, and honestly I'm betting on the former. All the same, he _asked_ me to send him out. So, I did."

With all the bluntness of a sledgehammer, Hayase replied, "Bullshit. No one, not even Takeru is crazy or stupid enough to _ask_ for a suicide mission."

"Then I'd advise you to reconsider either your definition of crazy or your beliefs about Shirogane." Yuuko shot back. "Anyway, Hayase, we're done talking about this. Leave unless you have something further to report."

Mitsuki bit her lip almost hard enough to draw blood. "Very well." She said stiffly. "I'll leave, then."

"You do that." Yuuko said disinterestedly as she returned to her equations.

As the doors closed behind her, Mitsuki let all her anger rise up and out of her throat in one solid roar of anger. Incoherent curses and shouts escaped her mouth as she let her traitorous emotions out. "Goddammit, Takeru! If you die out there..."

She shook her head one final time before straightening her posture and walking away. It was stupid to get so emotional, she knew that, but at the same time, it wasn't as if she could just let someone die so easily without at least throwing a tantrum or two. Takeru wasn't someone she knew well, wasn't even someone she'd call a friend yet, but knowing that he was deploying solo, just a couple hours after taking on a horde, it pissed her off.

"Hey, Mitsuki!" A voice snapped her out of her thoughts, and Mitsuki looked up to face a concerned-looking Kashiwagi Haruko. "Jeez, took you long enough. I've been trying to talk to you for the past five minutes."

Mitsuki rubbed the back of her head and smiled sheepishly. "Oh, sorry about that, Haruko." She laughed nervously. "I've been a bit distracted lately, I guess."

"Hmm?" Haruko took a closer look, staring blatantly at Mitsuki's face. After an extended period of silence, she concluded, "It's about a boy, isn't it?"

"Huh?" Mitsuki made a sound of confusion. "What does Takayuki have to do with this?"

The blue-haired girl hummed appreciatively. "So his name is Takayuki, then. Glad to have that out of the way!" She grabbed the 2nd Lieutenant by the arm. "Now c'mon, let's get you to the PX!"

"Eh? Why? Also, this isn't about-"

"Oh shut up. I can tell something's bothering you, Mitsuki, so let's go and talk it out real quick. And if nothing else, maybe I'll buy you a drink or something." She pulled a little harder. "Trust me, I know about this wonderful juice that's absolutely _delicious._ "

Without being given so much as a chance to complain, Mitsuki was dragged forcibly through the halls. "Jeez, Mitsuki. You're pretty heavy, you know that?" Haruko complained innocently. "Better slim down a bit, or this Takayuki guy's not gonna give you the time of day."

To her disappointment, Mitsuki did not hit her. Didn't even yell at her, actually.

 _Something's really wrong with her._ She thought seriously.

"H-hey, Haruko? I think I'll be fine, really. You don't need to worry about me." Mitsuki offered.

"Tch." Haruko clicked her tongue. "This is Valkyrie squadron, in case you forgot. We _make_ it our business to worry about each other." She grabbed onto Mitsuki's arm with her other hand. "Now, if you wouldn't mind..." She pulled. Hard. "Start _walking!_ You're heavy, you know that!"

"Oh, um, sure." Mitsuki answered awkwardly.

Haruko smiled lightly. "Good. Now then, you wanna tell me what's bothering you?"

Mitsuki scratched her head. "Didn't you just rule it out as boy troubles?"

"Nah. Just seeing if I could get a rise out of you." She answered bluntly. "Seriously though. Is it about the operation? I know Munakata and the 1st Lieutenant got hurt pretty bad, but it's not your fault-"

She shook her head. "No, that's not it. Actually, it's about the pilot we recovered."

"Ah, that guy?"

"Yeah. Takeru. The thing is, he was only here for about an hour before the commander shipped him off on a solo mission. I know I shouldn't care, but, it just feels..." She trailed, trying to find the right words. "Wrong, I think. It feels wrong to send someone out so soon, y'know? And without any support or anything either."

Haruko's smile dropped, replaced instead by a frown. "Where'd you learn all this, anyway? I haven't heard _anything_ about the pilot; didn't even know he was in the base before you told me."

"I saw him leave. Stacked with bags and gear, too. It looked like he was going to be out of supply for a week or two."

"And that bothers you, doesn't it?" She said bluntly.

Mitsuki nodded in agreement. "You're damn right it does. No one, ace pilot or not, goes out solo. Especially not for weeks on end. I don't like it one damn bit."

"Then why don't you do something about it?" Haruko offered, voice low and conspiratory. "Take things into your own hands, Mitsuki. You've always been that kind of girl, haven't you?"

"A-are you saying I-"

"Tsk, tsk. I'm not 'saying' anything, 2nd Lieutenant. I'm merely 'suggesting' a course of action." Haruko said as she pushed through the PX's twin doors. "And a tiny little suggestion can't hurt anybody, right?"

"Haruko, this isn't like you..." Mitsuki trailed.

"And you think you're normal right now?" She asked sarcastically. "You're not you right now, Mitsuki. You're quiet, you're timid, hell, if I didn't know any better, I might even call you halfway sane. Not one of those things fits the Mitsuki I know." A pause. "The point is, this is bothering you, and I can see that. So, no matter what it takes, I want to see you be yourself again."

Mitsuki was silent.

"Even if I have to crawl into a horde of BETA with you, even if I have to suffer through an hour of Isumi's punishment, I'll help you."

Then, Mitsuki looked up into Haruko's eyes, searching and prodding deep to see how well her convictions matched her words. "You're serious, aren't you Haruko?" She said after several moments of silent deliberation.

Haruko offered a grin. "As serious as I'll ever be."

"This could get us both killed, you know." She warned.

"When have we ever _not_ been in danger of dying? Even your _drinking parties_ usually puts someone in the hospital."

"We're probably gonna get punished pretty badly when all is said and done."

"Who cares? What's one or two beatings in the face of a life saved, am I right?"

Mitsuki sat down in her chair, directly opposite to Kashiwagi. A pervading silence, heavier and more tense than anything she'd felt before, fell over them, despite the ambient sound of the PX.

"This is a stupid idea." Mitsuki said bluntly.

As if it were totally natural to her, Haruko had a comeback for every sentence. "Well then we must be pretty stupid people, because I'm not backing out."

"You're serious?"

She smirked. "Didn't I just say that I was?"

"...Alright." She conceded, her voice small. "I believe you."

Haruko clapped her hands together as a wide smile spread across her face. "That's all I ever wanted from you, Mitsuki-chan! Let's get this show on the road!"

Pushing in her chair, Mitsuki turned back toward the exit as well. "Yeah. Sounds good." And after a moment of silence, she added, "Let's go kick some ass."

* * *

So, that's done and done. I'll start writing chapter six now. Also, are any of you guys been addicted to the Alternative opening as well? Because I've been listening to that on a loop and also memorizing the Romaji lyrics. It's gotten to the point that I can pretty much sing it from memory without any musical accompaniment.

...My friends think it's creepy how I randomly burst into (Japanese) song when I'm at the archery range.

Anyway, that outta the way... I actually have a review to respond to down here!

 **Labulabu** : Glad you liked it. As you can infer, this is an alternate dimension that comes somewhere before Alternative, so Takeru is more or less destined to die. Although, I can always use a bit of Bullshit Magic™ to make him live. But, even if he does end up in the ground/eaten/blown up/recycled into another BETA, at least we'll have a nice long chunk of narrative to read beforehand.


	5. Intro Arc, C5

**AN**

Some minor TSF bullshitting will follow. Mainly involving the use of stealth systems and how, canonically, they suck ass.

* * *

The full moon rose over the battlefield, unobstructed by the clouds. Pale white light illuminated the devastated landscape, bringing to attention every pockmark, every scar, every crater created by countless battles and conflicts. This was the island of Sadogashima, and it was under full BETA control. As such, the land was a blasted wasteland of lifeless white soil and stone, and standing off in the distance, like a dark monolith, was the Hive's Monument.

"That's it. That's my mission." Takeru whispered under his breath, as if speaking any louder would draw the BETA to him.

Yuuko's voice came in over the intercom. "Alright, Shirogane. You've made it this far. You know what you need to do."

"Of course." He began to type commands into his TSF's activation terminal. "Here's hoping this stealth system of yours works."

In response, she waved dismissively. "I put it together in an hour. Of course it'll work."

"Haa..." Takeru sighed. "I know you've never really been normal, Yuuko-sensei, but you should know that saying stuff like that doesn't do a whole lot to reassure people." After a few more seconds, he hovered his finger over the execute key. "Alright. I'm activating the stealth system now. Comms array going offline."

"You better do this mission right, Shirogane." Yuuko finished, her voice dead serious.

Takeru saluted just as all the lights went dark.

Fumbling in the darkness, he found his dufflebag and dragged it to his lap, setting it down roughly. He scrabbled for awhile, searching for the zipper, before finding it and pulling it open. Inside was an entire treasure trove of small gray cylinders, filling the bag from near-top-to-bottom, as well as a conspicuous white box covered with blast-padding and ablative gel.

The cylinders, if he recalled, were like anti-laser shells, and filled to the absolute brim with heavy metal particles. Theoretically, they were supposed to get hit by the laser-class on the way down the main shaft, explode, and provide a dense metal cover so as to allow the white box to reach the ground safely. That is, if the parachute survived the lasers, and there was certainly no guarantee of that.

It wasn't what he was looking for.

After nearly a minute of looking, he found a large flashlight. Breathing a sigh of relief, he flicked it on. Light, a whole lot of it, filled the cockpit.

"Ah, thank god. I hate operating in the dark." Takeru said gratefully as set the dufflebag aside and reached for his backpack, which he found searching through to be a much more pleasant task with the aid of the light.

Takeru pulled out a small pocket parachute and hooked it to the white box's handle, clasping it as tightly as he could. "Alright, that's done and done. Let's get this show on the road." He zipped up both bags and set them to the side.

Slowly, he pushed his controls forward as far as he could. The TSF, in response, began to walk slowly and sluggishly toward the Monument.

"Servos, engines, and motors are all totally silent." Takeru observed. "Damn you're good, Yuuko-sensei."

The only noise his TSF made was the stomping of it's several-ton-body on the soil, and even then, Takeru could minimize that with a half-decent level of posture control. Additionally, the lights were dark, and the heat emissions were temporarily blocked through the use of heat sinks, thus ruling out most forms of visual detection. It really was a perfect stealth system.

Still, there was no guarantee that it would work. For all they knew about the BETA, they might not even need sight to identity targets. And if they didn't care about all the measures Yuuko had taken to prepare his system, then he'd be totally fucked. His mobility was shot to hell and all his side-and-rear facing cameras were gone, so he wouldn't be able to dodge anything they threw at him if they decided to attack.

Still, he had no other options, and was thus forced to rely on the system.

After two minutes, Takeru deemed the heavily modified chassis to be fully operational. He reached back for his rucksack and pulled out a large, domed helmet.

"Ah, I hate the way these things look." He complained as he slipped it over his head. "Still, beats choking to death on BETA blood, I guess."

Muttering, he replaced his bag and reached up for the newly made release switch above his black camera display. Takeru grabbed it with both hands, and with a colossal amount of strength only made possible thanks to his armored suit, wrenched it down.

For two, terrifying seconds, it did nothing. Then, there was the sound of wrenching metal, and the frontal wall of the cockpit split open. The cameras, the extraneous control board, the internal speakers, all of it went tumbling out of the TSF along with the wall, crashing down to the soil below and shattering into dozens of pieces.

A rush of cold November air filled the now-exposed cockpit, though Takeru felt none of it thanks to his armor. Along with the air came rays of blessed moonlight, just bright enough for him to see. He switched off the flashlight and faced outward, training his eyes on the monument ahead.

BETA were everywhere, he could see, swarming all around the spire of dark blue metal. Thankfully, they weren't yet in their aggressive state, and merely seemed to be digging out the soil and stone surrounding the Monument.

"Are they trying to expand the hive?" Takeru wondered aloud.

The horde was massive, much larger than anything he'd ever imagined before. Far too thick for any human offensive to cut through, whether it was only one TSF or a hundred. Teeming, swarming, writhing like a sea, they climbed up down and around the spire, forcibly adding chunks of metal and silicates to the main body.

Takeru slowed his TSF's already sluggish movement and took a moment to observe what he was seeing. "The BETA are... miners? Constructors?" He asked confusedly.

As they crawled over the Monument, carrying chunks of metal and stone both up and down the Hive, they looked far more efficient, far more at home, than they did on the battlefield. They worked like any insect hive-mind would, acting in unison with a uniformity and organization far surpassing most human operations.

A feeling of insignificance came over Takeru at that moment. "All this time, I thought they were monsters bent on humanity's destruction..." He murmured, his voice just barely above a whisper. "Yet, they were never even built for combat. All this fighting, all this war, and we're not even facing actual soldiers."

 _This whole time, they never once took us seriously..._ Takeru thought forlornly.

Takeru squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep breath. "No, no. Relax, Takeru. If you get scared now, you won't be able to save Sumika." He told himself. "Just forget about it. Take those feelings and bury them, far and deep, where they'll never come out again."

 _Right. I can do this._

Using what little he could see from the cockpit's collapsed wall, he avoided the swarms of BETA. They hadn't yet noticed him, thanks in no small part to Yuuko's stealth system, but Takeru wasn't quite willing to tempt fate.

They were close, now. So terrifyingly close that if he hadn't been wearing his helmet, he was sure he would have been able to smell their breath. The TSF moved slowly, cautiously, walking at a pace that felt painfully slow to him. BETA disappeared from his sight as they moved under his TSF, walking in erratic, unpredictable patterns.

In the distance, a band of lumbering Fort-class trundled their way across the land, bearing distended midsections. Carrying a troop of BETA, Takeru surmised. As to where they were going and why they were doing so, he had no idea.

He was nearing the Monument. Just a few hundred yards, and he'd be able to scale it's walls. BETA stood between him and it, however, in a wriggling mass that was at once both terrifying and impenetrable. Hacking through them all was probably impossible, no matter the amount of knives he'd packed for the operation, and pulling out his rifle seemed like an even dumber idea.

"I need a diversion."

Takeru cursed. Why hadn't he thought of this beforehand, dammit?! Frustration intermixed with a desperate sort of anger ran through his head, blurring in and out of his thoughts in an instant. A shout nearly escaped his lips, but as he bit down on his tongue hard enough to draw blood, the noise died back down again.

 _Think this through logically, Takeru. This isn't impossible. Just backtrack out of the horde, detonate the S-11 a couple hundred meters away, and let them swarm over that instead._ Takeru sighed. His nerves were weighing on him now, fraying at the tips.

The longer this operation went on, the more his psyche would crumble. It didn't take a psychiatrist to understand that suppressing all his emotions was taking a toll on him. Takeru slipped his hands from the controls and stretched his limbs, crossing his arms over each other.

"Let's think about this rationally." He told himself. "BETA aren't clever, so one really big explosion should draw most of them away from here and give me time and space to throw the device down the shaft." He reasoned.

"Though, if I do use the S-11, it'll probably draw the Laser-class out of the Hive, and that's a whole new bag of shit to deal with." If that happened, Takeru could reasonably call himself fucked. "But, if I can set this bomb off somewhere else, without having to leave this spot, I might just be able to climb up there before the Lasers emerge."

Takeru eyed the knife-sheathe on his TSF's forearm. He'd had it overclocked just before he came here for the express purpose of knife-launching, but now he wondered if he could enlarge the launching mechanism to accommodate a tactical explosive.

He shrugged his shoulders. "Only one way to find out, I guess." Takeru looked for a safer place, moving with the cautious and methodical movements of a stalking leopard. His heart pounded in his chest as he stepped over and around the milling BETA.

Then, the foot of his TSF brushed over the skin of a Grappler.

With all the sudden violence of a hand grenade, shit hit the fan.

Almost simultaneously, the horde of BETA roared deafeningly, breaking the heavy silence of the night. And like an angry red wave, every one of the monsters turned toward Takeru's TSF, swarming toward him faster than his machine could move.

" _FUCK!_ " He screamed as he scrabbled for his sword.

The first of them was on him before he could even grab his hilt, jumping directly into his TSF's exposed cockpit. A Tank-class, it's skin a livid shade of red, landed in front of Takeru's face, jaws snapping furiously at air just inches from his face. Gritting his teeth and fighting back the horror, he initialized his inbuilt exoskeleton, powering up the twin shoulder-cannons as quickly as he could.

Just as the monster widened the cockpit's entrance enough to fit it's berth, Takeru pulled back both triggers. With an ear-shattering blast that surely would have deafened him had he not been wearing a helmet, four 36mm rounds tore through the BETA's face and sent it flying down his machine's hull into the writhing sea below.

Sparing no time, Takeru sent his TSF into a full backward sprint. And in spite of the grave limitations Yuuko's stealth system had put on his system, he charged back as quickly as he could. BETA were directly behind him, however, and just as he felt he'd put distance between himself and the horde, a Destroyer-class rammed into the back of his legs.

The metal ligaments in his machine nearly collapsed and exploded from the sudden impact, but miraculously, they held together. His balance however, was immediately upset, the force of impact throwing him forward several meters.

Just before he could be sent into a self-destructive fall, however, he dug his feet into the soil and pivoted, using the momentum of his fall to swing back and face the BETA. Takeru jumped into the air, planting his feet directly onto the Destroyer's shell and leaping into the air. Without the thrusters to back him up, his flight was a short one, and he tumbled back to the earth, landing just behind the monster.

He raised the left arm of his TSF, stabilized his aim with the right, and launched his knife directly into it's back. Without hesitation, he turned around and unsheathed his other knife, bringing it up just in time to impale another jumping Tank.

"Gotta deactivate the stealth system!" He shouted frantically as he tried to bring his systems back online. "Hurry, dammit!"

A Grappler lanced him from behind, cutting into his TSF's unarmored back. Takeru gritted his teeth and jumped back into the air, shaking off the creature with an acrobatic flip. He landed and immediately broke into a dead sprint, trying desperately to break away from the horde.

Delirious panic pierced through his composure, and a sudden urge to vomit what little food he'd eaten beforehand overtook him. Time passed in a blur of color and sensation, and Takeru felt his mind slipping. Yet, somehow, he found the strength to fight down his traitorous instincts. Physical control, if not mental, came back to him, and he willed his machine into a faster run, despite the intense strain put on it's joints.

 _Have to buy time! Have to buy time!_ He screamed internally, looking for a way, a method, an ace-in-the-fucking-hole he could use to break free.

Then, an idea struck him.

 _The heat sinks!_

Reached behind his back, Takeru came to a sudden and jarring stop and ripped out the long white cylinders that jutted from his machine's spine. The twisting wrench of metal was both horribly painful and totally satisfying to hear.

" _Eat molten lead, you fucks!_ " He screamed as he adopted a grenadier's pose. He threw the first canister as far as he could into the direct center of the enemy vanguard.

The tank of liquid metal did not explode, it _shattered_ , spraying a white-hot blast of metal in every direction. Sounds that were almost akin to screams filled the night, shaking Takeru's vision and deafening his hearing. The sound was painful, yet at the same time, beautiful.

He hadn't so much as a second to take in that beauty, however, as a Grappler came charging at his midsection. Takeru unsheathed one of his swords and pushed forward, cutting directly past the monster's raised arms and splitting it right down the middle. Another BETA charged down his left without giving him a second to spare, and he completely threw his body into a dodge.

Just as the tank soared through the empty air he'd occupied just a moment ago, Takeru re-engaged his exoskeleton's cannons and blew it out of the sky. His ears were ringing and his helmet was cracking from the sheer vibrations, but he pushed ahead all the same. One hesitation would kill him; he couldn't spare a single one of his thoughts on anything but cutting through the horde.

The auto-loader placed another knife in both his empty sheathes. Takeru praised both god and Yuuko-sensei for being so thoughtful.

A troop of Destroyers charged toward him, pushing directly into Takeru's southernmost flank, effectively forming a pincer attack. Takeru grinned wildly, reached up with his free hand, and grabbed the remaining heat sink from his back. Just before the monsters were on top of him, he launched the makeshift grenade directly into their shield-wall of carapaces.

Molten lead, a bubbling vortex of it, melted through their shells and destroyed the flesh that lay beneath, ending their charge just before they could kill him.

A whole swarm of Tanks jumped his machine, flying toward his exposed cockpit with a ferocity unmatched by any other organism on the planet. Takeru flipped his blade and swung as hard as he could, swatting the entirety of the group out of the air with the flat of his sword. Following up with the attack, he pulled his rifle from his hip and fired a full hundred rounds into the pile of grounded BETA.

Blood splattered in every direction, covering both Takeru and his TSF head-to-toe.

"That's right, you monsters! Kill me! I dare you!" He screamed, his voice carrying through his helmet's external speakers. " _KILL ME!_ "

With a wide, sweeping arc, he let loose a hail of bullets directly into the horde. He had pulled back both triggers hard enough to bruise his fingers, and even that, he felt, wasn't enough.

As soon as a Grappler got past his defensive line, he raised his right arm and launched a knife directly into the middle of it's body, splattering it's body like a water balloon. Laughing maniacally, Takeru ran directly into the heart of the swarm, cutting through alien flesh and bone without hesitation. His sanity was slipping, he knew, but as he brute-forced his way through the heart of their offensive, he felt that if he was anything _but_ completely insane, he'd die.

Takeru disengaged the stabilizer on his right leg and sent himself into a ballerina's spin, spraying rounds in every direction with his left arm, and cutting through every inch of nearby muscle tissue with his right.

"Kill me! Kill me! Kill me!" He chanted manically, laughter escaping his mouth in between every word.

In an intricate dance of death, he twirled, he spun, and he soared, reducing everything he saw to ribbons. And suddenly, the battleground fell silent.

As if coming out of a hallucination, Takeru found himself staring at the aftermath. Dozens of BETA stood dead around him, cut, shot, or blasted to pieces, and he realized that he'd won. Temporarily, at least.

Yet he knew they were going to be back. He could hear them rumbling in the distance, rushing toward him. And he knew that he had neither the willpower nor the weaponry to face them down and win. For a moment, he readied his blade, prepared to make one desperate last stand.

But in the next, he realized that he had more to do than simply die. He had a grander purpose to fulfill.

"That's right. I have to live. For Sumika's sake." He knew what he had to do.

Takeru raised his TSF's left arm into a hammer shape and brought it crashing down on his right. He broke directly into the automated knife-sheathe, and with his machine's fingers spread out, he wrenched the launching mechanism opened as wide as he possibly could.

"This better work." Takeru muttered as he pulled out his TSF's S-11. "Because if it doesn't..." He jammed the explosive into the widened launching canal, armed it, and aimed it high into the air.

"Because if this fails, I'm probably going to die." Takeru squeezed his eyes shut and looked to faced the right wall of his blood-splattered cockpit. " _LAUNCH!_ "

With a loud thump of pressurized air and gunpowder, the bomb was sent flying through the air, arcing high above the land before coming crashing back down to earth. It flew several hundred meters away, crashing far away from the Monument Takeru needed to reach. When it landed, the explosion was massive and bright, illuminating the entire island for all of a second.

Then, the light died, and Takeru broke into a sprint, charging his way straight to the Sadogashima Monument before the BETA could have a chance to surface from below.

His machine was still in stealth-mode, and all of Takeru's attempts to change that had been rejected. At any other time, in any other situation, he might have cursed that fact. But as it stood, it allowed him to bypass the distracted BETA even as he was running among their ranks.

Coming to a stop at the foot of the Monument, Takeru took a deep breath. This was it, he'd done it. All he had to do was drop the dufflebag down the launching shaft, and he'd have completed his mission. He'd have guaranteed Sumika's survival.

"Let's get this done." Takeru grunted as he put a hand to the jagged metal.

The edges of the black monolith were sharp, certainly sharp enough to bite into the his TSF's metal limbs, but all the same, he scaled the structure with the experience and confidence of a veteran. When at last he came to the top, Takeru breathed a sigh of relief, fished the blood-spattered dufflebag from behind his seat, and initiated the parachute's auto-release timer.

"Here goes nothing." He said flatly as he dropped it from his cockpit's open wall.

For two seconds, nothing happened as the bag dropped down the shaft and into the hive. Then, a blindingly bright light shot out of the launching shaft, temporarily stripping Takeru of his vision even with his helmet on. Simultaneously, the ear-shattering blast of several hundred lasers filled the air.

Takeru cursed loudly and took an instinctive step back. The light persisted for several seconds, illuminating the entire area around the hive, before eventually dimming and receding.

"Well... that's done." Takeru said after several seconds of silence. "Here's hoping those anti-laser things did the trick."

Just as he turned his TSF around to prepare for a getaway, a swarm of BETA climbed up over the edge of the Monument. Innumerable numbers of them, easily too many to count, charged at him from every direction.

Takeru smiled wanly. "Guess it's just my time, then." He muttered. "Alright, I guess it can't be helped."

He threw away his busted sword and pulled out his last replacement. Similarly, his gun was tossed to the side and replaced instead by a knife. "Yeah, I can accept that I'm dying here." Takeru said quietly as he brought his TSF's systems back online.

"But I can't accept going without a fight!" He shouted as he charged into the swarm, choosing to attack the horde's westernmost point.

His machine was on the verge of collapse, damaged critically in several key places, but he pushed ahead all the same. He crashed against their vanguard like a wave breaking on the shore and pierced through their defense at blade-point.

Takeru cut through the entire first rank of Grapplers, ripping through with an effortless flurry of steel and death. As his machine's limitations began to ease and his targeting systems came back alive, he felt his reflexes improve exponentially. Accurately, mercilessly, he severed heads and limbs without so much as a pause in between.

A Destroyer, having climbed the Monument by walking over the piled bodies of it's comrades, came charging for Takeru's exposed back.

"Not dying so easily, you shitbag!" He shouted hysterically as he engaged his jump jets.

Lifting into the air, he watched as the BETA charged head-first into it's massed allies. The damage done was minimal, but Takeru grinned as he saw just how badly it broke their formation.

"Die! DIE! _DIE!_ " He screamed, launching another knife directly ahead of him and splitting open the head of a Fort-class.

Suddenly, a voice broke out over his cockpit's intercom. It was only barely heard, drowned out mostly by the roars of BETA, but Takeru heard it all the same.

"I hope you're not taking _all_ the fun, Takeru."

"Mitsuki!" Takeru grinned. "Goddamn am I glad to hear your voice!"

If he could see her face through the camera display, which he couldn't on account of the screen having been ripped out of the wall, he would have seen her grinning dangerously.

"Well, I'll tell you outright, I don't feel the same." Over the comm line, Takeru heard her engaging her boosters. "I mean, if you could see the kind of hell you've raised..."

Takeru pulled the triggers on his exoskeleton and tore the body of another Tank into crimson ribbons. "Don't tell me, I don't care."

Mitsuki laughed. "Well too bad, 'cause I'll tell you anyway. The rough estimates say there are at least thirty-thousand trying to get a piece of your ass at the moment."

The grin on Takeru's face became even wider. "Sounds fun! Sounds like a fucking blast! C'mon, you should join in too!" Takeru launched another knife, impaling the body of a Grappler that had nearly ripped off his arm.

"Oh I will, you can bet on that!" Mitsuki's TSF came flying over the top of the Monument, gleaming like a knight in shining armor. "And Kashiwagi too!"

As if cued by those words, a deadly storm of bullets ripped through the BETA's northern flank, cutting through their flesh and carving a pathway through in the most literal sense. Off in the distance, Takeru spotted Kashiwagi's TSF, bearing four assault rifles.

Mitsuki landed directly behind his TSF, holding two rifles in her hands. "Takeru, catch!" She shouted as she threw one of the Type-87s into the air.

Takeru grabbed it with his right arm, devastated though it may have been, and brought it's muzzle to bare on the BETA swarming toward them. "Eat metal, you sons of bitches!" He shouted as he pulled back the trigger.

Mitsuki leaned against his back, pressing into Takeru's heavily damaged frame. Reciprocating the action, the two of them stood against each other, spraying depleted uranium and death in as many directions as they could cover.

The corpses piled and the blood flew, but the BETA only crawled over their fallen, sprinting across the hard metallic ground to reach them.

"I don't suppose you had a plan, eh Mitsuki?!" Takeru shouted.

"Haha! Of course not, who the hell do you think I am?!"

Then, suddenly, the third TSF came flying over the horde. Brilliant blue jets engaged and burning, it soared with the beautiful lethality of a falcon. Flipping in mid-air, the mech faced down the horde from the air, aiming all four of it's guns on the BETA swarm.

Pulling back the triggers, Kashiwagi let fly a devastating salvo of eight 120mm shells, firing one after the other in a destructive volley. Explosions blasted out across the top of the Monument, blowing massive holes in the monsters' ranks and opening up a path, however narrow, for their escape. Seconds later, she landed back on the ground, but before the BETA could so much as turn toward her, she launched her TSF back into the air.

Like an angel of death, Kashiwagi rained bullets down on anything she could see, turning entire swaths of enemies into steaming corpses. As soon as her alarms pinged, she engaged her thrusters in mid-air and began an incomprehensible dance of maneuvers to keep the lasers from tracking her.

"Die already, will you!?" She screamed.

The crimson stinger of a Fort-class came darting at her from the left, screaming toward her at a speed most helicopters would have been envious of. Kashiwagi wrenched the controls to the right, nearly breaking her hands in the process, and veered as far away as she possibly could. Just as the halberd-like blade cut through the air, her alarms began to ping wildly.

A bright blue beam of light, slicing through the air, lanced through her TSF's leg, destroying it entirely. With a heavy crash, she slammed into the Monument, just a few meters off from crushing Mitsuki's TSF. Without a wasted moment, she turned back around to face the BETA she'd bombarded just seconds ago and loosed another torrential hail of bullets.

Relying on thrusters alone, she maintained her balance and fired off every weapon she had at her disposal. A swarm of Tanks jumped for her, soaring into the air, but as soon as she turned her guns on them, a Grappler charged her from the front.

Just before the thing could break her machine in half, Mitsuki's TSF, bloodstained and damaged, charged forward and sliced it in half. Not wishing to lose momentum, she went sprinting ahead, engaging her thrusters and boosters to meet the enemy vanguard blade-first.

Slicing through flesh and blood in an intricate tango of steel, she carved her way into the heart of the enemy. Through sheer combat prowess, she parted the tide of BETA , first dividing them and then scattering their formation entirely. Takeru and Kashiwagi were right behind her, charging directly into the swarm in a desperate struggle to break through.

Within moments, BETA were assembling behind them, having filled the gap that the three of them left. Kashiwagi turned back and unleashed the full breadth of her firepower on them, decimating their unarmored ranks through sheer saturation fire.

But it took no more than a few seconds for her thrusters to flicker and dim as fuel depletion began to rear it's ugly head. Before the thought could panic her, she shouted into the microphone.

"Mitsuki! Shirogane! We need to leave, now! Open up a path before they overwhelm us!"

"Roger!"

Takeru took point, engaging his boosters as hard and fast as he possibly could as he barreled through the lines. He cut through the ranks with his blades, a blaze of gunfire filling every possible inch of air not occupied by his machine. The hail of bullets ripped through any BETA that he couldn't reach with his blades, and Mitsuki blasted anything else that dared to live with 120mm shells.

The sea was massive and endless, and it seemed that for every hole Takeru opened, there were always a dozen creatures ready to fill it back up again. Yet, the situation wasn't hopeless, and as a Fort-class climbed into view, he saw in it's appearance an opportunity.

Putting his boosters into overdrive, Takeru flew screaming toward the giant monster. It's stinger came flying up toward him, but he rolled his TSF into a stomach-churning spin and redirected the weapon toward his arm instead of his cockpit. With an explosion of splintering steel, his arm went flying off into the horde below, where it was lost beneath their ranks. Undeterred, he used his remaining arm and pointed his sword point-first into the BETA's face, carving through it's skull and coming out the other end.

Engaging every one of his thrusters and boosters, he took to the air, flying as erratically and unpredictably as he could to avoid a sudden death by laser. Adrenaline pumped through his veins, and his heart accelerated into a pace that was nearly inhuman.

The wind coming in through his cockpit cut through every layer of clothing Takeru wore, which was admittedly not much, but he activated his afterburners and redoubled his speed all the same. Like a shooting star, he cut across the night sky and blazed past the devastated island.

* * *

When at last they managed to fly past the battlefield, they landed roughly on the beachhead. As soon as their boots hit the ground, all three of them cheered raucously, a sense of victory larger than anything they'd ever felt before coursing through their hearts.

" _Fuck yeah!_ " Mitsuki shouted, letting go of all the tension and fear that had been building inside her.

Takeru slumped back in his blood-splattered chair, simultaneously relieved and elated. It took him several moments to understand that _yes_ he'd just done that. Yes, he had just charged into a Hive solo and walked out alive afterward. Yes, he'd just managed to cut through an entire swarm of BETA with nothing but two blades, and _yes_ he had just saved Sumika's life.

Kashiwagi Haruko cheered triumphantly, an intense feeling she couldn't quite identify running through her veins. She felt alive, she felt terrified, she felt amazing, she felt _so many things_ , not all of them easy to describe. But above all, she felt _proud._ She was an Eishi, a warrior of humanity, and by god, she'd proven it today.

"Haha, you can all get fucked, BETA!" Takeru cheered. "I just walked right into hell, and I swear to god I'd do it again!"

"Takeru, have I ever told you that you're absolutely batshit _insane?!_ "

"But that's why you like me, isn't it, Mitsuki?"

"You're damn right it is! Get out of your TSF, I wanna hug you so badly right now!"

Takeru laughed. "Business before pleasure, 2nd Lieutenant." He quipped.

Kashiwagi's voice went out over the intercom. "Goddamn, that fight was something else, Shirogane. Breaking through a horde that size with only three TSFs, I mean, that was just incredible."

"I'll tell you what was incredible, Kashiwagi, the amount of _firepower_ you laid down on those bastards. Seeing their bodies fly, seeing them get cut to shreds, I've never seen a more beautiful sight in my life." Takeru said cheerfully. "And you too, Mitsuki, I mean... I saw you cut through _three_ of them with just one swing! How the hell does that even happen?!"

"You were pretty damn great out there too, Shirogane. I don't know where you learned to fly like that, or why you're so damn good with a knife, but I don't care. That whole battle was something else entirely." Mitsuki gushed. "If all your fights are gonna go like that, I'd follow you right down to hell and back. Just so I can be there to kick some ass with you."

Takeru grinned. "I'm damn glad to hear it."

"Can't say the same, honestly." Kashiwagi said. "But that fight? I'm never, ever going to forget that. I mean, how could I?"

"I'm right there with you, Kashiwagi. This one's going down in the history books." Takeru pushed his TSF forward experimentally and found the controls growing unresponsive quickly. "Hey, let's get back home now. I need a drink to celebrate. Or ten."

"Amen to that." Mitsuki agreed. "Let's get moving, then."

All their mechs were damaged to an extent. Mitsuki had suffered more than one critical failure in her machine's ligaments and joints, signs of the intense strain she'd put on her systems. Her arms in particular were damn near shattered, driven to the brink of destruction by her own maneuvering.

Kashiwagi's machine was crippled, both literally and figuratively, by more than one attack. Her right leg was missing, and though the auto-repair protocols had patched the fuel leakage, she'd suffered far too much damage to be able to ever walk again. As it stood, she was using one of her rifles as a crutch to move around.

However, Takeru's was absolutely devastated. Covered head-to-toe in BETA blood, sprayed up down and around the hull, it almost looked like a second layer of paint. The hull was smashed, bitten through in more than one place, and outright destroyed in some places. The secondary fuel tank had been eaten through, and had been completely drained of propellant. The spine was scorched to a black crisp through the destruction of the heat sinks, which had sprayed molten metal all over his TSF. An entire arm was missing, it's socket made completely irreparable by the powerful acid that had melted it's frame.

And of course, his cockpit was totally exposed.

The three of them traveled in a reverse arrowhead formation, Takeru at the center. They moved slowly and defensively, ready to respond to a BETA retaliation at a moment's notice.

But thankfully, there was no retaliation. Takeru and Mitsuki and Kashiwagi all made it to the ferry-boat intact, if not exactly whole. Breathing a collective sigh of relief, they boarded onto the ship and dismounted.

One of the mechanics got a look at Takeru's mech and whistled appreciatively. "Well hot damn. We heard the explosions from all the way back here, so we were expecting somethin' bad, but this..." He ran a hand over the Shiranui's nearly destroyed foot. "This is unbelievable. Never seen a TSF get wrecked this bad before."

Takeru, helmet now removed, rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Yeah, I know. The mechanics are probably gonna be pissed when I get back."

"Hell yeah they are." The mechanic agreed. "Can't imagine how much work it's gonna take to get this thing back up to scratch. I mean, hell, I'd just scrap the whole thing and start over. Gotta be a lot faster than trying to repair the damn thing."

"It is pretty bad, isn't it?" He paused. "Anyway, I'm gonna go take a shower. You don't have to mess with the TSF if you don't want to." Takeru offered.

The mechanic saluted and let him go, choosing instead to look over every inch of the TSF's damage.

"Oh, hey, wait up Takeru!" Mitsuki called as she walked over to him. "How're you feeling?" She asked, concern evident in her voice.

He smiled lightly. "Honestly speaking, I'm about this close to collapsing." For emphasis, he held his thumb and index finger in a circle, the tips of both fingers almost touching. "So I'm gonna go take a shower and wash the blood out."

Mitsuki nodded. "Probably a good idea. But..."

"But?"

"But it'd be cooler looking if you walked back into Yokohama all blood-spattered, looking like you just saw hell. Then maybe you could look at some fresh-faced rookie and say something inspiring. All the girls would fall for you, I bet."

Takeru shrugged. "Well, that's just too bad then. I don't really feel like letting this shit dry in my hair just so I can look cool. I'll be in the shower if you need me."

She giggled at that. "Is that a proposition, Takeru?"

"It is if you want it to be." Takeru smirked. "See ya." Waving over his shoulder, he walked into the bright light of the crew deck and disappeared around a corner.

For a time, she was quiet. But as the wind howled and she let her thoughts run free, she smiled lightly, eyes twinkling in the starlight. She walked over to the ship's edge, watching the workers as they disconnected the lines and prepared the ferry for launch.

"You're an interesting one, Shirogane Takeru. Keep this up, and I might even have to start calling you my friend."

* * *

 **AN**

Ah, well, in the end that may have been more underwhelming than I initially promised. Oh well. Next chapter will mark the end of the intro arc! Do tell me what you thought of this chapter. Did the existence of a stealth system bother the fuck outta you? Because I know that, canonically, they never really worked out... but I needed a plot device, dammit! Welp, like I said in Chapter 1, I'm gonna be taking a lot of liberties with the design and function of TSFs.

That outta the way, I got another review to respond to, and by the same guy/gal as last time.

 **Labulabu:** Yeah, it always bugs me when people forget that Mitsuki has a love interest that isn't Takeru. I mean, I know Takayuki only gets mentioned in a couple of lines through the entire game, but he does exist, dammit! (Though he was kinda... dead.) Anyway, thanks for the review. Hope to see you around next chapter.

*edit To avoid confusion, I'll say it here: Takayuki lives in this AU. For the time being, all I'll say is that it makes for a potential plot device.


	6. Intro Arc, END

**AN**

Hey, it's finally done! I kinda hit a block in literally the last half of the last page for chapter 7, but after doing my editing run a little earlier, I just decided to say, eh, who cares, and slapped a big ol' END CHAPTER sign on there. Anyway, to make a short story even shorter, I finished it, so I can post the chapter here.

Oh, and yeah, starting next chapter I'm going to start slowly trickling OCs into the story, about once every few chapters or so. If you wish to voice dissent, there's a poll on my profile, as well as a nice, big, shiny button for reviews down below.

* * *

Staring forlornly at the outside wall, Sumika awaited death. She barely remembered what had happened and what, if anything, she'd done to deserve such punishment. Yet, when the guards escorting her to the cell looked at her, their expressions were filled with hatred and malice. They told her, in no uncertain terms, that she was a monster, a psycho, and that when she inevitably met her fate via firing squad, the world would be better off.

She wasn't sure if they were being honest or not, but she did know one thing: Takeru was gone. It was with a powerful belief that was at once childish and beautiful, that she knew this. If he wasn't gone, he'd be there with her, watching her and protecting her until her last breath. Why she believed this so strongly, Sumika had only the slightest idea, buried on some subconscious level of her psyche.

 _Takeru-chan said he'd protect me. I believe him._

This thought was all she had, and she clung to it with a vise-like grip. If Takeru-chan was here, in this strange, strange place, then he'd be by her side. The fact that he wasn't with her simply told her that he'd been forced to leave because of one reason or another. She held nothing against him; the world was a cruel place, and there were any number of things that could have forced him to abandon her.

Maybe the soldiers forced him to leave. Maybe he left on his own to try and save her. Maybe Yuuko-sensei tricked him into leaving. Maybe he simply couldn't bear to be around a monster like her. Thoughts and sentiments much like these, an infinitesimal number of them, ran through her head, but in every one of them, she believed wholeheartedly that Takeru wasn't to blame.

She just loved him that much.

The sounds of a sliding door and a series of heavy footfalls made itself known. Willfully, she turned away from the iron bars, staring instead at the dingy wall behind her. If her captors were back to jeer at her, then so be it. They could say all they wanted, but she wouldn't give in and she wouldn't acknowledge them.

But then, she heard another, more peculiar sound. That of a card sliding through a receiver and the rattling of metal as her prison became unsealed. For one second, one traitorous second, she was tempted to turn back, if only to satisfy her own curiosity. Yet, she didn't. If her captors wanted to harm her physically, then they could do as they wanted. She wouldn't so much as look-

"Oi, Sumika."

Her heart stopped.

"I know you're a bit of an airhead, but, c'mon..." He put a hand on her shoulder and forcibly turned her around so he could see her face. "At least say 'hi' to the guy that just saved your ass."

She stared for a moment, amazed and awestruck and driven to silence by sheer surprise. And then, with a cheerful grin, Takeru hugged her, enveloping her in his warm embrace.

"A-ah... Takeru-chan... you're, here..." She murmured, voice weak and unbelieving.

"Of course I am. You seriously didn't think I'd just leave you to die, did you?"

Tears beaded at the corners of her eyes. Dumbfounded, she put her hands to her face and tried to make sense of her emotions. "I'm crying." She said blankly. "Why am I crying?"

"Maybe it's because you're happy, you dummy?" He stepped back and took a seat on her cot, covering it in dried flecks of BETA blood. "When people are happy, they tend to cry. It's not rocket science, you know." He told her in a purposefully patronizing voice, hoping to get a rise out of her.

"Takeru-chan, I'm not an idiot, even I know that..." She protested weakly.

He laughed. "Well, considering you were the one that asked the question in the first place, I'd say that's pretty debatable." Takeru leaned back against the concrete wall. "Ah, damn, I'm getting dried blood all over the place. Probably would have been a good idea to change into a uniform before coming down to see you."

As Sumika wiped the tears from her eyes and let her vision settled, she took in his bloodied form. "B-blood?! Are you hurt anywhere, Takeru-chan?!" Immediately, she sprung from her chair and into the bed, going over every inch of his body to search for wounds.

"Haha, relax, Sumika. It's not my blood." He explained jovially. "Actually, there's quite a story about it-" Sumika was now prying through his hair to look for bruises and cuts, which annoyed Takeru to no end. "-and I'd tell you about it if you'd just _get off_ me!" He barked irritably.

Reluctantly, she stepped back, instead choosing to sit next to him, almost close enough to be sitting in his lap, actually. "Jeez, Takeru-chan. You're so mean! Shouldn't it make you happy that a girl wants to fawn over you like that?" She whined.

"If it was anyone but you, Sumika..." He muttered, just quiet enough to go unheard. "Anyway, before I start, how about you? What was this place like while I was gone?"

"Boring." Sumika said flatly. "And scary."

"Because I wasn't there to protect you?" He asked, tone light and joking.

It bothered him when she didn't deny it.

Takeru began to speak again before the silence could become heavy. "Yeah, of course it was scary. Sorry I couldn't get here earlier. I wanted to say goodbye before I left on that mission, but," He paused to articulate his thoughts. "I didn't want to, y'know? I kinda felt like, if I came to say bye, I wouldn't come back again. Do you understand what I'm trying to say?"

Wordlessly, she nodded.

"Part of it was for your sake, I'm sure. I didn't want to give you any false hope. But at the same time, I think some of it was my own selfishness too. I remember thinking that, if I _did_ die out there, I'd be more comfortable if you thought I'd just left or disappeared. I didn't want you to think I'd failed to protect you." He admitted.

"I'm sorry I didn't say goodbye." He concluded, his voice losing most of it's false confidence.

Sumika slid closer and leaned against the bloodied side of his body. "Tell me about the mission, Takeru-chan." She whispered.

"Yeah. You got it, Sumika." He breathed in and out, leaning back against the wall and sighing. The grin on his face faded, replaced instead by an expression of impassivity. "You know, suddenly, I'm not feeling as upbeat as I was a second ago. I'm sorry about that." He apologized, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly.

She nodded. "You don't have to put up an act around me, Takeru-chan." Sumika told him with all the bluntness of a sledgehammer. "We've been together forever. I can tell when you're not being yourself."

Takeru laughed tiredly. "I've been seen through." Looking at the wall ahead of him, he sighed. "Should have known, I guess. Sumika may be the dumbest girl I know-" She thwacked him on the head "-but she's also the one who knows me the best. It's always been hard to lie to you." He admitted.

She recoiled from him in shock. Whether it was feigned or not, Takeru honestly couldn't tell. "Takeru-chan! Y-you lied to me?! When?!"

"Remember last week when you asked me about that poem you wrote?"

"But I thought it was good!"

"Sumika, even if that was the first thing you ever wrote – and believe me, you and I both know it wasn't – it was laughably stupid. It was scatterbrained and melodramatic and just couldn't seem to decide what kind of message it wanted to send..." He ruffled her hair affectionately. "But, that's just like you, isn't it?"

"Uuu..." Sumika moaned unhappily. "That's really not a compliment, Takeru-chan."

"H-hey now. Don't get mad at me, it was _your_ poem." Tiredly, he stretched out onto the bed and laid down, resting his head on the side opposite Sumika. A thought occurred to him shortly afterward. "Right. I promised to tell you a bedtime story, didn't I?" He muttered half seriously.

She nodded.

"Well alright then." Takeru said. "Let's get started then."

So, it was with a thin smile and a weary voice that he began to speak.

* * *

It was impossible to know how much time he spent talking with the total lack of clocks and/or windows, but somewhere around the second third of the story, Sumika ended up passing out. Takeru was surprised at first, even a little hurt, but it didn't take long for him to realize that to him, it had been only a few hours since he last slept, but to her, she'd been pushing well over eighteen hours of sleeplessness. Not to mention how tiring the day's events must have been.

Takeru stretched his arms over his head. "What a troublesome girl you are, Sumika." He muttered as he got off the bed and stood straight. "Too spoiled to even walk on your own, huh?"

As he bent over to pick her up, he saw for the first time the state of her arm and leg.

They'd been fixed.

Or more accurately, they'd been mended. Not perfectly, though. The scar tissue was still ugly and rippled, and it was clear from just his tactile senses alone that the replacement bones they'd given her were C-grade fodder. All the same, Takeru felt grateful toward Yuuko, who was undoubtedly the one who'd organized the operation.

Even if she'd semi-literally sent him to his death, and even if she'd threatened Sumika's life in the process, he couldn't find it in himself to hate her. Perhaps it was just nostalgia speaking, but he couldn't help but hope that all she did, and all she was doing, was toward some sort of higher purpose. Before the war, Yuuko had been a genius, clinging to logic and calculation to a nearly insane degree. That alone made Takeru think twice every time she said or did something 'cruel'.

Because, simply put, cruelty would have been illogical to a genius such as her. What dis needless cruelty do to advance science? What would tormenting her former student achieve beyond a waste of hours?

Takeru snapped himself from his thoughts and slipped his arms under Sumika's knees and arms, picking her up and bringing her into the air. Slipping her over his shoulders like an overly large sack of grain, he carried her up and walked her out of the cell. The guards at the door, recognizing the black of his armored suit, saluted to him as he walked past.

He snapped off a salute in return, the action hampered somewhat by the girl hanging around his neck. Stepping out into the hall, he walked aimlessly through the corridors until he came to a pale blue map with a helpful layout of the hallways and a bright red "You are here" dot. Takeru read the map, sighed gratefully, and carried on his way.

Eventually, after much more meandering (and more than one return trip to the ever-helpful blue map) he came to a stop at the doorway to Sumika's new room. Dexterously swiping the card from her pockets, he opened the door and unceremoniously dumped her on the hard-looking white cot.

"Goodnight, Sumika." He whispered softly before walking back out the door and down the corridor.

 _Well, now that I'm done doing that... now what?_ He thought to himself. _Seeing Yuuko-sensei might not be a bad idea._

Technically, he _had_ reported in after doing the mission, but at the same time, he only remembered saying somewhere around eight or nine words to her upon coming back: 'Mission's done. Can I have the key-card now?', before making his way down to Sumika's cell. Perhaps, he reflected, that wasn't exactly the best choice considering his situation.

"She's probably mad at me now..." Takeru muttered. "Better make my way down before she starts plotting against me or something."

Completely reversing direction and consulting the now-memorized blue map, he made his way back to Yuuko's office through the corridors. The base was offputting in it's late-night emptiness. Not another person crossed his path, which while not uncommon in and of itself, the sheer lack of noise was damn near disturbing. Not even the whirring of midday coolant fans or midnight heating pumps to provide background noise. It was, after all, the hours between early morning and dawn, when next to no one was awake and thus had no need of such things.

He reached Yuuko's room and swiped down his access card, entering with the slow and reflective steps of a punished child.

Unsurprisingly, Yuuko was awake even now, albeit surrounded by empty stim syringes and coffee cups. "Ah, Shirogane? I see you've graced me with your presence yet again. Do you perhaps care to speak like a rational and reasonable human being this time?" She mocked, her tone sharp and irritable.

"Sorry, Yuuko-sensei." Was all that Takeru offered.

She pinned him down with a venomous glare. "Is that all you have to say?" She asked rhetorically.

Yuuko glared at him for a few seconds longer before breaking off and laughing. "Don't tell me you thought I was serious, Shirogane. I'm not angry at you, not even irritated, actually." As if to emphasize her point, she smiled up at him, her expression brighter and more colorful than Takeru had ever seen before. "That device I had you drop into the hive? Well, it's been transmitting a signal back to base for hours now. The BETA haven't once tried to destroy it."

"Eh? A transmitter? What kind of signal is it sending back?"

She smirked. "Nothing but a senseless beeping noise. It's a little bit annoying, actually."

"So the thing you had put down there was-"

"That's right. Just a simple transmitter with some dummy electronics planted inside." She explained. "Little more than a toy, unfortunately."

Takeru flashed back to the hive, thinking back at how hellish it had been. Swarms of BETA tearing and ripping, battering his machine to near total destruction. The last stand he'd been prepared to make just before Hayase and Kashiwagi appeared. How terrifyingly close the three of them had come to dying, how easily it would have been for the BETA to overwhelm them.

And for what purpose? Was that battle really so pointless?

"Sensei." Takeru growled, his voice low and angry. "I'd like you to explain what the hell that fight was for, then, because I'm _this_ close to strangling you."

"Oh?" She hummed. "And here I thought you had more emotional constraint than that. Didn't you yourself say that threatening me would only end in failure?"

He laughed emptily. "Sensei. Explain."

"Ah, so scary." Yuuko teased. "But alright, I'll tell you, since it's not really a confidential topic or anything."

She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her desk. "It's quite simple. Laser-class tend to target the weapons and devices with the most on-board electronics. So, I filled a white box with computer chips and live circuitry, hooked a transmitter to it, and had you dump it down a hive. I wanted to see whether or not the BETA would try to destroy it."

"And this is relevant because...?"

"It's important for a future operation." She said simply.

Takeru sighed, his anger abating almost as quickly as it had appeared. "I'm going to guess you used me to do it so you could keep your own men unharmed?"

Yuuko shrugged. "Well, that was the plan. But then Hayase and Kashiwagi charged in and made a mess of things. I don't suppose you had something to do with that?"

"No." He answered flatly. "I didn't ask them to do it or anything. They just sorta dropped by on their own. Not that I'm ungrateful or anything, but, I could've done without nearly getting one of them killed."

"Ah, Kashiwagi? Yes..." Yuuko trailed off as she turned to her mouse and keyboard. A few clicks later, she spun the monitor's swivel mount around and turned Takeru's eyes to the screen. "I managed to salvage the combat footage from her TSF. When she was pulling those aerial maneuvers, she attracted a lot of attention. Especially from the laser-class. Just a few feet higher, and it's very likely that beam would have taken out more than just her leg."

Takeru hummed thoughtfully. "What about their, um, punishment?"

"Their punishment, huh? I hadn't honestly given it any thought. I've been too busy working to bother with it. I suppose I could have Isumi beat them once or twice if you really wished it, though."

"Er, that wasn't really what I meant..."

"Well, I suppose if a beating isn't enough, I could have them thrown in the underground prison for a few weeks."

He blanched. "You're enjoying this, aren't you?" A pause. "Just um, be merciful, please?"

"Very well. I'll just have Isumi decide their punishments a week from now."

"Why a week? Wouldn't it be better to just get it over with?"

She shrugged. "Well, Hayase and Isumi both are going through a specialized training program at the moment, and I figure it would only be nice of me to give her time to think something up..." Her voice trailed.

"Anyway, back on topic now, you are correct. I used you to do it because it would cost me the least. If you succeeded, it would have only been a damaged TSF. And if you died, well, it's not as if getting one more unaffiliated civilian killed would have harmed my research." She said with cold calculation.

"How cold of you, Yuuko-sensei." Takeru said flatly. "Can't say I'm surprised, honestly."

"Hm? You're taking this rather calmly. What happened to the old Shirogane? What happened to the immature, emotional brat that I used to teach?"

Takeru shrugged. "I guess you could say he's dead." He settled into a chair opposite Yuuko. "I'd have died a hundred times over if he were still in control."

Yuuko smiled. "That's good to hear. I have no room on my roster for the weak-minded."

"Your roster, huh? I suppose that means you're drafting me?" Takeru asked, his face an expressionless mask.

"I'm giving you a choice." She said promptly. "Join the UN as a training cadet under my command or get shipped out to one of Japan's many refugee shelters in Hokkaido, frozen wasteland though it may be."

"Training?" Takeru asked, confused. "Wouldn't I be more useful on the field instead of behind a desk?"

"As a soldier, you're damned good at what you do, Shirogane. I've never seen anyone be able to operate a TSF like you before, and you're the only one who could have possibly run the stealth OS properly. There's not another pilot in existence who could possibly move a TSF without any working electronics, let alone fight."

She continued. "You're a diamond in the rough. While I admit I need more capable troops on the frontline, I have a bigger need for competent officers. I'll put you through a specialized training school to teach you discipline and tactics, the same one Isumi is doing, and while we're at it, I'll give you a squad to lead so you can gain experience as a commander."

Standing up from her chair, she reached into her lab coat and pulled out three items: a plastic card, a patch, and a document. His access card, his rank, and his identification respectively. "Will you accept the offer or not?"

Takeru was silent for a time as he considered his options. Then, with a quiet laugh that showed little in the way of humor, he answered, "I don't have much of a choice, now do I? I accept. What squad will I be leading?"

She smiled again. "Oh, I think you'll like this one, Shirogane. They're the greenest of rookies, having only just gotten entrance into the base a week ago, so they're gonna need a lot of instruction. Still, I think you'll make for a capable commander." She passed him a fourth item, a small sheet of paper lined with text. "Memorize this oath. I'll have you officially sworn in about a week from now, you can meet the squad then. But before that, I'll put you into the Officer Training School."

"Understood. Thank you, Yuuko-sensei."

She waved him off. "There's no need to thank me. I'm merely doing the thing that best serves my own interests."

"Even so, thank you. You've given me a chance to make a difference in this war, more than I could ever do as a foot soldier."

"So dramatic~" Yuuko sighed. "It's too early in the morning for this. Go change out of that armor and take a shower, that armored suit is filthy." She observed flatly. "Oh, and here's your room key. Normally, fresh recruits have to share a barracks, but I can make an exception considering the circumstances."

"Right. I appreciate it." Takeru took the plastic card and jammed it into his pocket alongside everything else.

"That concludes our little meeting, then. Go back to your room. I'll have a uniform delivered in a few minutes."

"Understood." Takeru saluted and walked out the door.

Yuuko watched him leave, and after exactly five seconds, sighed tiredly. "Damned kid. Can't he see that I'm not in this for his sake? Doesn't he realize how much blood I have on my hands?" She drifted down to her desk drawer and pulled out another syringe filled with pinkish liquid. Pinpointing the location of a vein with ease, she stabbed the needle into her arm and pushed down the stopper. "I really can't understand that guy."

* * *

 _The following morning_

Takeru wasn't sure what time he went to bed, or even if he'd slept at all. He didn't know how restful his night had been, what he'd done before he tumbled into bed, or what, if anything, he'd eaten. Nearly everything after Yuuko's office was just a hazy blur. What he _was_ aware of, however, was the distinctly human-sized weight resting on his naked chest. He was equally aware that the skin of said human-sized weight was not at all covered in anything.

A feeling not unlike sheer terror came over him in that moment. _What the hell did I do?!_ Very, very slowly, he tried to crawl his way out from under whatever was pinning him.

But all the same, the heap of blankets shifted, and a purple haired girl peeked her head out from under it. She looked at him curiously, and upon seeing his face, smiled cheerfully. "Good morning, Takeru." She said brightly, as if it came totally natural to her.

Takeru blinked. "Uh, right. Good... morning." He offered lamely.

"Did you sleep well?" She asked him politely.

"I suppose you could say that. I'm not tired, anyway." A moment passed and he realized that there were more important things to talk about. "Right, well, I'm going to ask you a question." He began. "I want you to stay absolutely calm, alright? No hitting me, no yelling at me, and no calling me a pervert, right?"

"Okay?" She asked, obviously confused but not willing to inquire about it.

"Right... uh, thanks." He muttered lamely. "So, I'm going to throw it out right now. Did we, uh, do it last night? 'Cause honestly, I can't remember a damn thing."

The girl frowned. "You don't?"

"Not a thing. I remember leaving the Commander's office, but everything after that is either a blur or totally blank."

"Oh, that really is a shame, Takeru. You were so wonderful last night, so gentle, so calm, and yet so passionate, too. It really was a transcendent experience." She said matter-of-factly.

"Quite an array of adjectives you have there." Takeru deadpanned. "Sounds like something you'd get out of a trashy romance novel."

"Really? I thought it was poetic, actually." She said glumly.

Takeru sighed.

"So can I get an answer? Did we or did we not have sex?" He looked around his room. "I'm not seeing any stripped clothes anywhere, but, well..." His voice trailed as he mentally pointed to her naked body.

The girl blushed furiously.

"We did not." She concluded after several seconds of embarrassment so strong it was nearly audible.

"Then why are you in my room? My _locked_ room?"

She smiled. "Love knows no boundaries. Or walls. Or electric mag-locked barriers.

It was in that moment that someone decided to walk into his room.

"Time to wake up, Takeru-chan!" Sumika shouted cheerfully.

When nothing but silence met her, she took another step closer. "Takeru...chan...?" She pulled back the irregularly sized lump of blankets on his bed, and though Takeru was unable to see her face at the time – a combination of purple-haired girl and piled blankets blocked his line of sight – he could practically _hear_ Sumika's shock as she tried to comprehend what she saw.

"O-o-oh, okay..." She stammered. "I-I see you're w-with your g-girlfriend! I'm gonna go now!"

"Hey, wait, Sumika! There's a perfectly logical explanation for this!" Takeru shouted, just before she could run out the door.

"There is?" Sumika asked.

"There is?" The purple-haired girl asked in tandem.

Takeru snapped his fingers. "Y-yeah! A perfectly reasonable explanation... if you'd just give me, like, five minutes to think one up?" He joked, trying desperately to maintain the situation.

Sumika looked skeptical. And angry. And sad, too. Quite a colorful mask of emotions, all told. "Takeru-chan, what sort of explanation do you have for the two of you lying naked on top of each other?"

"Uh..."

"It's quite simple, really." The girl spoke up. "Takeru is my future husband!" Then, with a very blatant, very visible movement, she clasped both her arms around the man in question.

"Awawawa..." Sumika's jaw dropped as she made an incomprehensible noise of shock.

"H-hey! That really isn't helping, you know!" Takeru hit the girl on the head. "Bad stalker-chan! Bad!"

"Stalker?!" The girl's voice reached a crescendo. "But-"

"Some unknown person I've never met sneaks into my room, disrobes, and lies on top of my naked body, all while covering blankets over the both of us to make sure I can't escape. What _else_ could describe what you're doing?"

Sumika eased, wiping away the non-existent sheen of sweat on her forehead. "Ah, so she's just a crazy girl. That's a relief."

"In what way does me being pinned down by a psychopath make you happy, Sumika?!" Takeru protested.

Suddenly, she blushed and looked to the ground, fidgeting nervously. "B-because it means that you won't get stolen from me, Takeru-chan." She said shyly.

"Stolen? I'm not your property, you know."

"That's right!" The purple-haired girl exclaimed. "Because Takeru is mine!"

Thwack!

"I'm not _anyone's_ property."

"But I'm yours, right?" She asked, voice bright and cheerful.

Takeru breathed a long-suffered sigh. "Please get off of me before you put my chastity in danger." He said flatly.

The girl didn't seem to be willing to oblige.

"Is that a no?"

"I won't. You're too warm." She whined, nuzzling her face into Takeru's chest.

 _Are you doing this on purpose?_ Takeru wondered as he looked at Sumika's face from the corner of his eye. _Oh boy. She's angry now._

"Hey, Takeru-chan?" Sumika began, her voice dangerously sharp. "Would you get mad if I stained your sheets with a little blood?"

"Now now, Sumika. Didn't your teachers ever tell you that homicide is bad?" Very slowly, Takeru began to inch himself out from under the blue-haired girl. "And besides that, I only got this room a day ago. It'd be annoying to have to clean the place so soon."

Sumika nodded dutifully. "So you're saying I should do it without getting blood everywhere?"

"No. I'm saying you shouldn't do it at all."

Takeru shifted uncomfortably under Sumika's withering glare. _It's not my fault! Honest! I don't even know this girl!_

Suddenly, just before Sumika had a chance to snap, the mid-day alert rang out. The girl, whose name Takeru still didn't know, suddenly sprang out of the bed and dashed toward his dresser in search of the clothes she mysteriously seemed to be missing. Quickly, very quickly, she rifled through his drawers and drew out a white-and-purple trainee outfit.

"I'll see you later, Takeru! I have to assemble with my squad now!" She called over her shoulder as she dashed out the door, still buttoning her blouse and straightening her skirt.

He stared dumbstruck at the open door for a moment before slapping a palm to his face. "You know, Sumika, I still don't even know that girl's name." He muttered.

Sumika closed and opened her fists, her damaged arm working slower than the other, seething rage threatening to burst. "Takeru-chan, you don't know that girl, right?"

Takeru sighed. "Didn't I just say that didn't? I don't know anything about her besides the fact that she woke up in my bed this morning. And no, we didn't do anything bad." He said conclusively. "At least, I don't _think_ we did."

"Takeru-chan! I'm super mad at you right now, you know that?!" Sumika yelled at him.

"Alright, alright. I'm sorry about an event that happened even though I had absolutely no control over it's proceedings and/or outcome." He deadpanned. To his (not) surprise, it only seemed to make her angrier. "What? Just calling it like I see it."

Just before she could hit him with a punch, Takeru kicked off his blankets and got off the cot. He stood up quickly, partly because he probably needed to report to the OTS soon, and partly because he knew Sumika got embarrassed (and thus less angry) when she saw him naked. For obvious reasons, one would assume.

Feigning nonchalance, he stepped toward the dresser with his body – and by extension his manhood – fully exposed. Takeru opened his dressers and pulled out his new uniform, freshly pressed and ironed, and laid it out flat on his disheveled bed sheets. Looking over to Sumika, who was both blushing furiously and stammering wildly, he put on a bewildered expression.

"What're you getting so embarrassed about? It's just a human body."

"T-T-T-Takeru-chan! Y-your thing! I c-can see it!"

He smirked. "Such astute observations, detective Kagami. Do tell me more of your thoughts on the matter."

"A-aren't you going to g-get dressed?!"

"Whoa, whoa, Sumika. Don't be so hasty. Walking around naked is one of the few pleasures us humans rarely get to enjoy in our daily lives." After a moment's deliberation, he added, "And besides, if you really wanted to leave, the door happens to be right behind you."

Presented with the infallible logic of his argument, Sumika nodded furiously, turned tail, and sprinted out the door.

Seconds passed, and the doors closed behind Sumika as she ran out of his room.

Takeru sighed, all the tension leaving his body. "Haha..." He laughed quietly. "Situation defused, I guess."

He yawned. "Time to get going." He put on his clothes as quickly as he could. After making doubly sure he had everything he needed, he stepped out the door and walked down the corridor, setting a fast pace.

Unlike the night, the entire complex was bustling with activity. People were milling about in droves, reporting in, assembling for training, coming back from training, and doing all manner of things. Takeru was half-temped to ask one of them for directions, but thought better of it. He was, after all, wearing the uniform and patch of a 1st Lieutenant (even if he wasn't officially sworn in yet), and he wouldn't want to embarrass himself by looking clueless.

"Officer Training School, where-oh-where could you be?" He thought aloud as he looked up and down the hallways.

A face stepped into his field of vision. Isumi. "Oh, well isn't this an interesting sight?" She remarked as she looked over Takeru's outfit. "A commissioned officer? And no sooner than a day after your transfer. You work fast, don't you Shirogane?"

"1st Lieutenant." Takeru snapped off a salute. "I haven't actually been sworn in yet, the Commander wanted to put me into a training program beforehand. Oh, actually, this is a good opportunity to ask, because I have no idea where the hell the OTS is."

"Tch. Not even a day and you're already gunning for my position, huh?" She shrugged her shoulders. "Guess it can't be helped. Come with me, I'll show you the way."

So, they walked. Far too slowly for Takeru's liking, perhaps, but it was amazing enough that she was willing to walk at all, let alone get out of bed, considering how many bullets she'd taken yesterday.

"Yeah, sure, thanks."

"It's not a big deal. I was actually headed down there myself for a few supplementary lessons."

"Supplementary lessons?"

She hummed thoughtfully. "Oh, yeah, I forgot that you're still new down here. Officers-in-training like you and I have to take random aptitude tests every so often to make sure we're still competent, so it's better to stay on top of things."

"Sounds annoying." Takeru muttered, thinking back on his pre-BETA school years.

Isumi shook her head. "I like it, actually. It makes me feel a bit safer, y'know? Like I can really trust the people I'm taking orders from, and vice versa."

They passed by a group of cadets, who watched as they walked by with something resembling reverence in their eyes.

"I suppose I'm still a bit green to have any definitive opinions yet, but are you sure a single slip of paper is enough to determine whether or not someone is fit to lead?" Takeru asked in a concerned voice. "And any standardized test is still susceptible to corruption, right?"

She smiled knowingly at him. "Yeah, you'd normally be right. Except, it's a bit bigger than standardized tests. When I say supplementary lessons, don't think of textbooks and desk lamps, think something more along the lines of PTSD-inducing horror machines."

"Huh?" Takeru made a noise of confusion.

The smile grew a bit wider, a bit more devious. "See, down there, we've got this big circle of simulator pods. They're kinda like the TSF simulators they have in the hangar, but a lot more advanced. They're made to put you in the ground most of the time in the most horrifying situations you could possibly imagine." Isumi's tone darkened. "Things like being eaten alive, having your skin flayed off by torturers, hacking up your own liquefied organs, that sorta thing."

He stopped walking for a moment. "Why?" He asked, his voice tight. "What's the point of in tormenting your best and brightest?"

She was quiet and reflective. "If I had to guess, I'd say it's to toughen and desensitize us."

"But... giving your commanding officers irreversible trauma, that can't be right. Would that even be useful to the ground troops?"

Isumi was silent for awhile. Whether she was forming an answer, letting the thoughts sink into his head, or simply ignoring him, he didn't know. But when she eventually did speak, it was with a lighter tone and a more cheerful voice. Yet,it was also a tone that didn't entirely convince Takeru that all was well.

"The most important thing for a commander is reliability." She told him informatively, playing the role of a kindly schoolteacher. "Being able to hold together under pressure, being able to make the right call at the right time and always for the betterment of the mission. I'm not Commander Kouzuki, so I can't say for sure what went into her head when she installed this regimen, but I think that's the explanation that makes the most sense."

Takeru bit back a protest and kept his voice low, hoping not to draw the attention of those around him. "Isn't it everyone's job to be able to hold together in tight situations? What does the officer have that the foot soldier doesn't?"

"Authority." She said promptly. "You see that patch on your arm? That's the mark of a leader. Nothing else separates you from your troops. But the thing is, those stripes of cloth aren't enough to command your soldiers on their own. You need to be able to inspire respect and confidence, or fear if either of those aren't your thing, and you need to be able to convince them that you're fit to lead. It's my personal belief that the OTS exists to make sure our leaders have a tough stomach and an even tougher mind so they can wade onto a blood-soaked field with no regrets."

"What about combat tactics? What about leadership and strategy?"

A shrug. "Sure, you'll learn your pincer strikes, your diversions, your flanking maneuvers, yeah, but like I said, mental toughness is what's key." Isumi said sagely.

They came to a pair of steel doors, polished and buffed to a near-mirror shine. The 1st Lieutenant pulled out her card, swiped it through the receiver, and walked into the room.

The Officer Training School was a large circular room dominated by simulation machines, albeit modified by small black boxes mounted above them. The machines, arranged in a large crescent shape, all faced toward the center, where a light blue terminal stood from the ground. A dim yellow light streamed in from the ceiling, but instead of illuminating anything, it merely made the whole place look darker by comparison.

"This is the OTS, Shirogane. Those machines you see? Pick one and hop in..." She trailed off as she looked over the blue terminal. "Ah, you're in luck today. Nothing but a nice, calming, virtual classroom to have lessons drilled into your head. Looks like you get to start off easy." She patted the seat of her simulator pod.

"So this is what the machines look like..." He muttered.

A large, egg-like shape with a curved door that presumably swung out like the door of a sport's car. Gray carbon steel on tinted glass that was black as night and twice as imposing. The entire thing was big, but not at all bulky like the giant metal machines in the hangar bay. Takeru could lay his body flat on the top of it, and maybe take up half it's length.

The door opened before him, and Takeru climbed into the pod. "Well, it feels a helluva lot more comfortable than any simulator I've ever sat in before. I'll say that much at least."

Isumi grinned. "Trust me, Shirogane. When this week is over, you're gonna hate the sight of these things."

He blanched. "I have no doubt."

* * *

 **AN**

This marks the end of the intro arc! This is the most drawn out story arc I've ever written, with about 36 thousandish words worth of events happening over the course of two in-narrative days. I'm gonna go and celebrate by pirating as many visual novels as I possibly can and then getdrunk on Waifus.

Anyway, about this chapter in specific...

Never been good at character interactions that don't have vitriolic mutual abuse. Maybe that says something about my real life relationships? Anyway, sorry if that came out a little bit shit. Especially with the weird shenanigans going on with Meiya's personality.

Also, the sim training is _kinda_ an original concept of mine, because I don't remember there being any personal, boots-on-ground simulators from canon aside from the cockpit machines. However, I'm sure I've stolen the idea from like, a dozen sci-fi stories, so yeah...

Review time!

 **Guest** : Yeah... I meant to include something about their punishment somewhere, but eventually, I realized I'd written twenty pages and not a single description in sight. So, I kinda slapped some bullshit into one of Yuuko's paragraphs and put it off for a little longer. Sorry 'bout that.


	7. Untitled Arc, C1

**AN**

So begins the next arc. Not sure how long it's gonna go or what it'll be about, but my general plan is to use this time to introduce OCs, further develop our already established characters, and start getting this plot on the fast track to war. This is it, folks. The beginning of the adventure. Judging from the pace I've been writing, this story is either going to go on for a loooooong time, or it's gonna get canned somewhere down the line because of me getting bored. I sincerely hope it's the former.

* * *

 _Three hours later_

 _I can draw them away! Run in the other direction, I can do this!_ Takeru remembered saying that about thirty minutes ago. He'd believed it, too. Yet, as he tore through the jungle with as much speed as his flagging body could manage, he knew his endurance was wearing down.

Blood misted from his mouth in reddish clouds, staining his face with pinpricks of color against an otherwise lifeless white. His lungs were burning and searing, tearing apart as he sprinted through the dense green jungles with BETA at his feet. The skin on his legs was turning bright crimson, stained with blood that lay just under the surface, as capillaries and veins ruptured apart from the sheer force of his own movement.

Muscles and ligaments were fraying, and the pain was exquisite in it's brutality. He could barely move, yet alone run, but even as his nerves numbed from the sheer agony, he could only push himself forward. To do any less would leave him dead within seconds.

"Aegis-3, light up my rear!" He shouted into his transmitter, voice hoarse and gravelly. "7, I need you to pull Aegis-4 out of the fight before he gets torn apart! I'll draw them away, so get g-" A pale white hand connected to a trunk-like limb slammed into his back, battering him to the ground. " _GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE AEGIS-7!_ " His voice broke into a painful screech that dredged up even more blood from his shredded throat.

The Warrior-class stared down at him with it's many eyes. Takeru gritted his teeth and leaped to his feet, tackling the monster to the ground. BETA were coming for him, swarming him from behind, but he spared not a single thought for such matters as he ripped out the monster's eyes with his bare hands.

There wasn't even a moment for his nerves to register the heated blood splattering onto his arms as a Soldier-class battered him from the front, throwing him further into the jungle with both it's arms. Takeru spat out a wad of blood and got to his feet, loping back into a run before he could be overwhelmed.

He brought up his transceiver with trembling hands and pushed out another transmission. "Aegis-actual to all remaining forces! Pull out! Pull out! Aegis-3, disengage and return to base!" A flurry of voices came from the other end of his radio. "Don't mind me! Go! Go!"

A BETA jumped him from behind and ripped into his arm, tearing it from it's socket. Takeru screamed in pain and wheeled around to face the Soldier-class he'd left behind just moments ago. Eyes squeezed shut and consciousness blurring out between waves of gray, he charged it and crashed the right side of his body into it's massive form.

There was an earth-shaking roar to his right, and just before Takeru could turn to face it, a blur of angry red skin filled his vision. Time seemed to slow in that instant, and the man was only barely able to drop his body to the jungle's floor, avoiding a sudden death by bifurcation. The Tank-class flew over his head, cropping off the majority of his hair, before melting back into the dense underbrush.

The Soldier-class towered over his prone body, and proceeded to pick up Takeru's defeated body with it's arms and carry him up to it's face. Struggling angrily, he tried desperately to break free of it's grasp.

"Let go of me you freak! _LET GO_!" Summoning up a reservoir of strength he didn't know he had, he twisted his entire body up into a devastating dual-leg kick.

It's grip faltered, and Takeru threw himself out. Yet, as soon as he hit the ground, he collapsed back to his knee, the reality of his injuries beginning to dawn on him. Unbidden terror coursed through his nerves, torturing his already-shattered mind. Crawling forward with his only remaining arm, he inched his way along the forest ground and retreated behind a tree, despite the encroaching swarm pushing toward his rear.

"This is... Aegis-actual." He breathed out over the communications array. "How's the objective looking?"

As he spoke, Takeru pulled out his 12.7 millimeter service pistol. It was a formidable weapon, deadly against human opponents, but less than stellar against the swarm. Slumped against the thick jungle-wood, he leaned out to the right and fired six times, each shot more blind and less accurate than the last.

 _"Aegis-7, reporting. Hostiles have been pulled from the target. Objective complete."_ The voice told him matter-of-factually. _"I'd suggest immediate extraction, Aegis-actual."_

Takeru laughed wryly as he shot off the head of a charging Warrior-class. "Didn't I..." His voice slurred into an indecipherable mess before he began again. "Didn't I tell you guys to leave a minute ago?"

Aegis-7 was silent for a few moments, but, very reluctantly, she agreed. _"I'll assume command, then, Shirogane. I'll link up the squad at coordinates 29-Y and extract from the combat zone."_

"Thanks, Isumi-" Two pairs of hoof-like feet barreled through the jungle, battering down trees and vegetation as they went.

Takeru rolled away from the tree as a Tank-class charged through it's hull. The furious red beast was on him in less than a second, stomping him into the ground first with it's legs, and then it's teeth. He hadn't so much as a chance to respond before his body was ripped into pieces, his life fading away just before he could scream.

* * *

When Takeru snapped awake, still lying in the pod, he felt stiff and painful. It took him several seconds to calm his nerves as hallucinations ran like water through his head. The sounds stayed with him, he noticed, burned into his senses vividly. He swore he could still hear the roaring, the gunfire, the blood gushing from his injuries like a water hose.

But yet, he was alive. Time passed slowly in that soundless darkness, and he used it to convince himself of that fact.

 _I lived. I survived. I'm not dead. That world wasn't real._ Repeating the phrases in his head like a mantra, he slowly, very slowly, brought himself back down to earth.

Several minutes passed by, and eventually, a stream of light trickled into his pod as the hatch opened above him. Takeru was thankful that the OTS was as dim as it was, because had the lights been any brighter, he probably would have been blinded. After a few more seconds, the hatch opened completely, and Takeru climbed out and got to his feet.

His balance was shaky at first, and he very nearly fell over. But a hand clapped over his shoulder, strong and steadying, and he held his stance. Takeru looked over his shoulder and found himself looking at the 1st Lieutenant's face.

"That was one helluva stunt you pulled back there, Shirogane." She said cheerfully as her expression shifted into concern. "How're you feeling?"

Slowly, Takeru removed Isumi's hand from his shoulder as the unsteadiness faded. "Ah, I think I'll live. Gotta admit, I don't think I'll ever forget the feeling of having my arm ripped off, but..." He trailed as he tried to think of the right words. "I'm still alive. Hurt like hell, and I was so terrified I'm sure I pissed my virtual pants, but, I'm not dead. That counts for something, right?" Laughing nervously, he leaned back against the simulation pod.

Isumi grinned. "You're an odd one, Shirogane. The first time I got dismembered, it took me somewhere around an entire goddamn month to get over it." She looked up at the ceiling. "They almost washed me out of the program because of that, actually."

"I'm glad they didn't. You're a good soldier."

"Even the rookie is patronizing me, huh? I'm your superior, you know. Shouldn't I be the one praising you?" Isumi crossed her arms over and stretched. "C'mon. Let's go see Hayase. I'm sure she's got a few things to talk to you about."

Takeru blanched. "Mitsuki's gonna yell at me again, isn't she?"

"Hey, you should be proud. Hayase doesn't verbally abuse just _anyone_ , you know." Isumi's grin was bright, revitalizing. Takeru offered a weary smile in return and walked behind her.

Mitsuki was shaken, badly so, almost to the point of hysteria. She slumped against her simulator pod, eyes unblinking and wide, and stared blankly at the wall ahead. Those around her didn't look too much better, hugging their knees to their chests and murmuring unintelligible words just barely loud enough to be heard.

"I can still feel them rooting through my intestines." Mitsuki whispered quietly with a hoarse voice. "Digging, cutting, eating. They won't stop, they just..." Her voice trailed into silence, but her lips never stopped moving.

Takeru sat down beside her, not saying a word, and put a hand on her shoulder.

"Takeru, I... I saw you get ripped in half. I saw the Tank tear you apart, but... but I didn't-"

He flicked her on the forehead. "Now do you mind telling me _how_ such a thing happened? Didn't I tell you to disengage back in the jungle?"

Either she hadn't heard him or simply refused to listen. "I could have stopped it, I had the machine gun. I had the weapon, I could have killed it. I could have saved you." Repeating the words to herself like a mantra, she slumped further against the wall.

He sighed. "It wasn't real, Mitsuki. Whatever you saw back there, it wasn't real."

"No, no, I know that. I _know_ it was fake, just a sim, but..." She clutched her hands to her skull. "It was so vivid. I could feel the rays of sunlight on my skin, I could feel the sweat under my uniform, I could feel the steel in my hands. Takeru, I remember the smell of your blood-" She admitted weakly. "There was just so much of it, and it was splattered everywhere, and then they turned back to me, and-"

Takeru bit back a sudden urge to slap her. "Hey, hey, hey, Mitsuki. Look at me- look at me!" He brought her head up to his, and forced her to look him in the eye. "I'm alive. You're alive. That feeling you have? The sounds, the sights, all the things that are still there with you right now, they're _hallucinations._ They aren't real. Walk it off, alright?" He smiled at her, putting on a mask of confidence. "You're an Eishi. Toughen up and soldier through it."

"Yeah, yeah, I know that. It's just that-"

"Nope. No excuses. It's tough, I know, but thinking about what makes it that way is only gonna make it harder to let go."

Mitsuki nodded, closed her eyes, and leaned back against the wall. "You've done this before, haven't you, Takeru? Dealt with this sort of trauma, I mean."

Takeru eased back. "Yeah. You could say something like that." He admitted, thinking of nothing in particular.

He hadn't, truth be told. All that he told her, and everything he was saying, it was the sort of philosophy he himself knew by heart. And yet, it wasn't from his own experience that he'd learned it. He hadn't learned it anywhere, actually, it simply came to him. But he told her otherwise, because to tell her that his strength simply came naturally would not only alienate him from her, but also leave her confidence shattered.

"Haa..." Mitsuki sighed. "That figures." She said nothing more.

Takeru sat down beside her, leaning his weight on the pod.

"We've got two more sessions scheduled after this one." He said quietly, stating the obvious. "You think you're ready for them?"

Mitsuki laughed weakly. "Not even a little bit. I'll be honest, I feel like I'm _this_ close to a nervous breakdown."

"That's normal, I think." Takeru looked over to Isumi, who was sitting silently and resting with what little time she could. "Hey, Mitsuki, wanna run out and get a few drinks from the vending machine before we sortie? I figure everyone could use a break." He offered.

"Yeah, sure, as long as it's coming out of your wallet."

"Not a problem." He said honestly, thinking of the officer-grade funding card Yuuko had given him just a few hours ago.

 _I'm giving you this card now, Shirogane, because I know you're going to pass that aptitude test. You're too good not to. But... of course, if you do happen to fail, I will be collecting whatever debt you accrue._ She'd told him with a barely concealed smirk that had seemed to say, _Go ahead, do something stupid. I dare you._

It was, of course, a mostly moot point because there was so damned little to buy around the base. Meals came free for soldiers and staff, and it wasn't like there were any shopping malls in the near vicinity. For the most part, the only money that left the card was from snacks and drinks purchased at the PX and the single vial of liquor he'd bought after his first major simulator operation.

Takeru helped Mitsuki to her feet. "Hey, 1st Lieutenant." He called, grabbing Isumi's attention. "Mitsuki and I are headed out to buy some drinks. You want anything?"

Her reply was almost immediate. "Yeah, sure. Get me something sweet. And make that a double order, too."

Takeru nodded dutifully. "You got it. Let's get going, Mitsuki."

She nodded obediently, and they were off.

As they left, the OTS remained deathly silent. The majority of the people who'd been in the pods were still shell shocked, and those that weren't were busy trying to comfort them. There was no crying, no sobbing, just silent, barely audible whispering – of both the traumatized and those who tried to help them – and a heavy atmosphere.

By contrast, the hallway just outside was intensely loud. Conversation, laughter, the quick and loud clinking of boots on metal. Takeru walked past them all, Mitsuki in tow, and headed toward the PX as quickly as he could.

"What do you think the next program's gonna be?" Takeru asked offhandedly, trying to start a conversation.

Mitsuki shivered in response. "I just hope it's not going to be another Adversarial."

He became withdrawn and hesitant. Slow to answer. "Yeah." He agreed, speaking much more quietly. "Killing BETA is one thing, but..."

"I'm just worried that I might _enjoy_ it." She admitted, voice low and hoarse. "I've always liked fighting BETA, and I'm just worried. What if I kill another person and start to like that too?"

A pause. "Mitsuki, you know that killing BETA and killing humans are two entirely different things."

"Maybe, but... I don't know anyone else in my entire unit that actively enjoys going to battle. I'm the only one, Takeru. I'm the only one who gets in the TSF to kill, and not to protect. That can't be normal, right? _I_ can't be normal."

They came to the entrance of the PX. Takeru cast his friend a concerned look as they stepped through the doors. "Mitsuki..."

Then, she shook her head and smiled weakly. "No, never mind. I'm okay. You don't need to worry about me."

Reluctantly, Takeru decided not to press the issue. "Okay. I understand." He fished his card from his uniform's pocket and put it into the vending machine.

For the first few orders, Mitsuki was quiet and reflective. But, perhaps inevitably, she eventually began to speak. "Hey, Takeru?"

"Hm?" Takeru hummed as he ordered a dozen cans of assorted drinks.

"Do you have a girlfriend?" Mitsuki asked him, voice low and conspiratorial.

Takeru stumbled for a moment. "No. Why do you ask?"

"There's a girl staring at us from across the cafeteria." She pointed out the person in question. A purple-haired girl in a cadet's uniform. Takeru, in response, grew every so slightly more pale. "Do you know her?"

"Haha..." He laughed nervously. "She was kind of, ah, in my bed this morning."

Mitsuki's eyes widened in surprise for a moment, but all too quickly, her expression shifted into a knowing smirk. "Ah, so it's like that, huh? And she's not even your girlfriend..."

She yelped as Takeru thumped her on the back of the head. "I _knew_ you'd say that." He remarked. "But no, that's not what this is. She seems to think we know each other. Really, all I know is that we didn't do anything last night, and that she knows my first name for some reason."

Takeru grabbed a large drink tray from a nearby counter and loaded up the cans. "Anyway, Mitsuki, let's get going."

"You sure that's alright? She looks a little, um, expectant? Is that the word?" She took a second look at the girl. "I mean, I'm not exactly one with my feminine side, but it's not exactly difficult to imagine that girls get angry when you ignore them."

"Nah, it's fine. I'm totally sure ignoring the potentially crazy lady and blatantly leaving the room with another woman can't possibly have any repercussions down the line."

Mitsuki hit him in the shoulder. "Your sense of humor sucks, Takeru."

"Bite me."

"Sorry, just so happens you aren't my type." She said, grinning.

"Oh, well isn't that a relief." He picked up the tray and walked out of the cafeteria's twin doors. "I can't imagine what kind of hell my life would be if _you_ started coming onto me."

She stifled a sudden urge to hit him again. "Asshole."

* * *

Officers-in-training were allowed a half hour to recuperate in between training sessions. Most used this time to simply console each other and steel themselves for the next op. Some used it to grab sleep wherever they could, considering that most days in the OTS could last up to sixteen hours. Very few used the time to work or plan ahead, even if the central terminals usually displayed the name and layout of the next operation five minutes after finishing the last.

Takeru was not one of those few. As he'd come to learn in the past few hours, training scenarios were highly unpredictable and tended to change drastically once they actually began. It wasn't as if the computer's synopsis was inaccurate or false, but rather, they could only usually be counted on for less than an hour before the enemy got reinforcements, or some equipment malfunctioned, or someone got severely injured by the simulation's automated protocols.

Generally speaking, it simply seemed like a futile venture.

However, there was one person standing at the terminal, jotting down notes in one hand and knocking back an unidentifiable beverage with the other. Takeru couldn't see much of her, and aside from her hair – black and short and cropped into a roughly shaped bob – he couldn't see any distinguishing features. Even her arms and legs were covered with long gloves and stalkings, barring any chance of spotting so much as her skin color.

Takeru looked away and slowly rotated his can of lemon soda, swirling what remained of the drink around in lazy circles. He'd counted the minutes internally and now figured that it would be roughly five or six minutes until the intercom's polite female voice told them to get into their pods. The lady at the terminal hadn't announced any sort of game plan, nor did she look as if she intended to, so he turned his attention away.

Instead, he focused on what would come after this op. It was clear that most of the people in this facility were relatively new, just like he was, and wouldn't be able to hold it together much longer. Takeru was sure that if this next one went wrong – and considering that this was a program of Yuuko's creation, it most certainly would – someone was going to snap. The people here were all tough, far more mentally durable than the average soldier, but all the same... No one forgot the feeling of being eaten alive.

There was only so much he could do to keep them together, too. It wasn't as if he could go around talking to them or consoling them personally. That had only worked with Mitsuki because they knew each other and had fought together before, if he tried it with anyone else, he'd likely inspire distrust and paranoia rather than confidence. And he'd already used the drink tray gambit once, and using the same trick twice would turn his surprise act of charity into an expected commodity.

Takeru wasn't a skilled enough orator to bring them together with a rousing speech, nor was he terrifying or fearsome enough to unite them against himself. At the moment, all he could do was assume the position of Aegis-actual, their commander, and do what he could to lead by example.

"Hey, Shirogane-san?" A voice snapped him away from his thoughts. Takeru looked up to find himself meeting the unfamiliar brown-eyed gaze of the strategy-lady.

"Hm? Is there something you need?" Takeru asked nonchalantly as he tried to remember what her name was.

Her eyes slid away from his. "Um, I was wondering if you would like to trade squad positions with me." She asked quietly, her voice reserved but not timid.

 _Ah, right!_ Takeru thought. _Her name's Kurosawa._

"You want to lead, Kurosawa-san?" He asked curiously. "I'll let you, sure, but if you don't mind me asking, why?"

 _Because you don't look at all like you'd be able to._

"I have a plan..." She told him, a certain blend of confidence in her voice.

Takeru laughed wryly and got to his feet. "I like the sound of that. What kind of devious scheme are you cooking up?"

"I'll explain it later. I promise."

He tossed away his drink can, leaving it in a dark corner of the room, and walked over to his simulation pod. "I'll look forward to it, then, squad leader." He said cheerfully.

Mere moments after he stepped into place beside his pod, the intercom-voice rang out over the speakers.

 _"All officers must now board their simulators."_ The voice commanded them, albeit in a wonderfully polite tone of voice. _"The operation will begin in one hundred and twenty seconds."_

Simultaneously, all eight of the room's pods swung open. Silently, almost mournfully, the Eishi boarded their machines. Gone were the exclamations and statements of excitement and curiosity, replaced instead by a defeated sort of sadness.

Takeru climbed into his pod and settled into the comfortable seat. His hatch hung open for a time after that, closing only after the two minutes had passed. The pod was dark afterward, but only for a few seconds. Shortly afterward, he felt the automated neckband stretch out over his throat and tightened almost hard enough to choke him.

A low-powered electric pulse followed shortly afterward, but Takeru felt none of it. All his brain's signals were intercepted by the neckband, and very shortly as the helmet slipped over him, he felt himself and his body shifting into the virtual world.

Takeru found himself standing in a circular gray room alongside the other officers, a large holographic display in the center. There were a few words on the display, but for the most part, it was simply a few overhead layouts, images, and diagrams of the area of operations.

An automated voice, this time a male, began to read off the operation's basic description. _"This is Operation Sentinel. This is a cooperative mission."_ The voice informed them politely. Somewhere off in another part of the room, Takeru heard Mitsuki sighing in relief.

 _"Officers, you will be split into one group of two and another group of six. The first group, call-sign Jester, will defend the illustrated compound-"_ An image of a large concrete fortress, crisscrossed with bullet holes, shell craters, and of course, a large number of corpses, appeared onscreen. _"-until the reinforcing group, call-sign Aegis, can arrive to extract them. The initial enemy force is estimated to be around three hundred times as large as the defending force, and the initial distance of the Aegis fire-team is 120 kilometers."_

The room exploded in whispers, mostly exclamations of fear and more than one utterance of, 'I hope to hell I'm not one of the defenders!' The only one who seemed to be unfazed was Kurosawa, who'd likely known this in advance.

 _"The enemy force is comprised of a randomized mixture of infantry, armor, and TSFs. The reinforcing unit is composed of four armored cars, one TSF, and one cargo transport truck. The defending unit has access to infantry-based weaponry and fortified emplacements."_ The voice told them. _"Lastly, both teams will be chosen randomly. Good luck, officers."_

And, without so much as another moment, the gray room blazed out of existence in a bright white flash of light.

* * *

Barely a second passed, and his eyes opened up to a concrete ceiling.

Takeru found himself screaming into consciousness, sudden flares of agony biting into his nerves. His entire mind was consumed by pain, totally occupied by the rapidly growing puddle of blood pooling under his leg. Gunfire rattled out overhead in tight, controlled bursts. The pinging of bullets against concrete filled every other vacant second, giving the image of a rapidly-crumbling structure. Yet, he was aware of none of this.

The only thing he saw in that moment was his own life blood, spilling away from him far faster than he could stop it, and the massive steel beam that was crushing his lower leg. Breathing in short, shallow gasps, Takeru tried and failed to weather through the agony. Another scream rose from his throat, and only biting down hard enough to crack his teeth was enough to keep it from spilling out.

 _Makeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstop!_ His mind screeched at him loudly and confusingly. _Make the pain stop!_

His heart was pounding in his ears, almost as loud and deafening as the gunfire, and his chest was heaving tremulously as his breathing grew even more erratic. Consciousness was slipping from him, he realized, and very soon he would fall into a blessed, pain-free oblivion.

"I can't... dammit." Takeru gritted his teeth and railed against the gray wave. "I have to stay awake." He told himself as he sat up.

An explosion rocked his bunker, blowing open a hole in the concrete wall. Shards and chunks of debris flew everywhere, and a flying spike of rebar nearly impaled his immobile body. Ignoring the noise and background, Takeru focused on the steel beam and clasped his hands around it's heavy mass.

Pain bit into his palms as the rusty steel cut his flesh, but he disregarded it entirely as he tried to lift the weight with what little strength he could muster. Slightly and slowly, ever so slowly, the beam was raised. First by millimeters, but then inches, it got higher and higher. If he wasn't in such crippling pain, Takeru might have smiled at the sight of it.

Having lifted it just enough to move his mangled leg out of the way, he slipped out from under the rubble and crawled back, wincing at the heavy crash when the beam slammed back into the blood-soaked ground.

Crawling along the ground, Takeru inched his way closer to the bright green medical kit stationed on the wall. Using the same chunk of busted rebar that had nearly impaled him a moment ago as a crutch, he pushed himself off the ground just high enough to swipe at the kit, knocking it to the ground. He threw the rebar off to the side and scrabbled at the case's smooth plastic surface and undid the clasps with the desperate movements of a madman.

Blessed, blessed pain relief came at that moment in the form of a morphine syringe. Takeru pushed the needle into his skin and pushed down the stopper, not bothering to even measure how much of the stuff he was putting into his body. Numbness spread throughout his leg, silencing the burning of his nerves and giving him back just enough of his conscious mind back to let him perform some basic first aid.

Minutes passed, and Takeru got to his feet, supporting his weight with the use of a discarded rifle. He hobbled out of the bunker as more shells bombarded it's walls, nearly deafening him with the noise.

As he stepped into the corridors, he found that the inner complex didn't look much better. Sunlight peaked out through opened up holes in the sunlight, and there were far too many breached walls for Takeru to feel safe while he was walking.

He reached for his shoulder, and was relieved to feel the transponder still in it's place. He clicked the button and called out to his other ally, hoping to god that she was still alive. "Hey Jester-actual, this is Jester-2, where are you?" His voice was raspy and weakened by both blood loss and morphine, but intelligible. At least, he hoped so.

A response came almost immediately after, albeit plagued by static and background noise. "Shirogane-san? You're here too?" It was Kurosawa's voice.

Takeru smiled weakly. "Yeah. Looks like we're in this one together, huh?"

"It seems so." She said quietly over a roar of gunfire.

"I don't suppose you have a plan for this, Kurosawa-san? Because if I'm being frank, we're stuck up shit creek without so much as a paddle."

She was quiet for a moment. "No, I'm afraid not." She told him apologetically. "I read the intelligence again and again, reformed my strategy so many times, but I'd hinged it on being in the reinforcing team. I know it was stupid to not make a backup plan-" Her voice was interrupted by the explosive blast of a nearby shell. "-I need to relocate, Shirogane-san! I'll call in momentarily!" She shouted frantically as gunshots filled the comms array.

Takeru broke off the transmission and changed direction, moving in the general direction of the gunfire. For the first, and very certainly not the last, time that day, he cursed his broken leg as he moved. He lifted his gun from the ground and leaned against the wall wearily, trying to keep as much weight off his leg as possible.

Concrete exploded overhead and shards of shrapnel scattered in every direction. Then, footfalls, a great many of them. Takeru got the briefest glimpse of black armor and immediately dove for cover, only barely managing to stuff the majority of his unarmored body behind a fallen pillar before a torrent of gunfire came crashing down at him.

Pain flared up in his leg as he crashed awkwardly to the floor, but he stifled the impulse to cry out and crawled along the ground. Staying low, he picked through the corpses of the many fallen soldiers, hoping for something, anything, he could use to gain an edge.

His luck was good, it seemed. A dark gray, blood-spattered cylinder caught his attention. A smoke grenade. Takeru took it, pulled the pin, and tossed it into the air above his head. It landed on the rough floor with a metallic clink, and for a moment, the soldiers scattered and ran backward, not recognizing the grenade for what it was.

A cloud of white smoke flooded out over the hallway, blinding and choking in it's thickness. Takeru took the opportunity to get to his feet, despite the blindly fired swarm of rounds screaming overhead, and grabbed a nearby corpse by the shoulders. Fingers sinking into desiccated flesh, he lifted the body until it was on it's feet. He pushed it as hard he could into the enemy squad.

"They're charging through the smoke!" One of the soldiers shouted as he opened fire on the shambling corpse.

Using his rifle as a crutch, he hobbled in the other direction as quickly as he could. Bullets were flying in almost every direction, it seemed, and it was incredibly lucky that his head hadn't been taken off in the dense smoke cloud. But, impossibly, he rounded the corner and found himself alive and relatively unharmed.

Hearing footsteps converging on his location, he pressed himself low to the floor and rolled his body into a bombed out pit in the floor, likely created by an errant mortar shell. Playing the part of a half-obscured corpse, he cast his rifle to the other side of the hall and quieted his erratic breathing.

Enemy soldiers rounded the corner, scanning down the hallway with their rifles raised.

"Hallway clear." One of them said roughly, calling back to his allies.

"I copy. Looks like we splashed him." Another responded as he looked over the bullet-riddled corpse Takeru had pushed through the smoke.

They hung around for a few seconds longer. Doing what, Takeru had no idea, but when their footsteps eventually melted off into the distance and became obscured by background noise, he breathed a sigh of relief. Pushing himself out of the pit, he got to his feet with the assistance of a handy pipe, and picked up his rifle.

His leg was beginning to hurt again, he realized, and suddenly he found himself wishing he'd taken the first aid kit with him when he fled the bunker. Nevertheless, he gritted his teeth and pushed ahead, moving through the hallways slowly and methodically, searching for a way to reach Kurosawa's position.

The distinctive black of the enemy uniform peered out over the corner of the hallway, scanning down in his direction. Without hesitation, Takeru raised his rifle and blew off his head. Rounding the corner, he activated his transponder and sent out a signal.

"Hey, Kurosawa, where the hell are you?" He asked, keeping his voice low.

There was nothing but static on the channel. Takeru cursed violently.

He crouched low and peered out over the wall, ready to dart back behind cover in a moment's notice. It was clear, for the time being at least, so he took his time in looting the dead soldier's corpse for anything even remotely useful. A handgun holster and a leather satchel later, and Takeru was feeling significantly more confident in moving ahead.

He rounded the corner and moved down the hall. Footsteps were all around him, loud and hurried, and it wouldn't be long before they came to investigate the sudden silence on their dead compatriot's radio. Pistol pointed first, he carefully pushed his way past the strewn corpses and made his way northward.

Recalling through memory the base layouts he'd seen, Takeru tried to navigate up to the central command center. If he could just reach the main terminal, then he might have been able to activate the defensive auto-cannons and clear out the interior, if only for a short time. Yet, the pre-operation schematics hadn't accounted for the numerous walls, ceilings, and entire corridors that had been collapsed by mortar shelling.

Still, he pushed his way through the rubble further into the base. As he ventured deeper and deeper into the complex, he eventually found that the gunfire and shouting was melting into the background. It seemed they hadn't yet breached this far in, yet.

A voice flickered to life over his transponder. "Shirogane...san?" Kurosawa murmured, her voice weak with pain. "Where are you?"

Takeru looked out over his back to make sure no one was in hearing range, more out of habit than fear. "Heading toward the center of the base." After a momentary pause, he continued. "You sound injured. Did you get shot?"

She chuckled weakly over the radio. "Looks like it. They clipped off my leg, actually. I'm lucky I haven't bled to death yet."

He paled. "I'm on my way. Transmit your coordinates now." _I can still save_ you, Takeru had wanted to say those words as well, but he was neither confident nor sure that he could deliver on such a promise.

She nodded dutifully. "I'm in the..." Her voice trailed for a moment. "The central command center. I'm stashed away in some dark corner and hoping no one sees the trail of blood I left crawling here."

He nodded. "Just stay alive. I'll be there as soon as possible."

* * *

 **AN**

And so we introduce our first OC, Kurosawa NoFirstName. Not quite sure how her character will pan out; initially I wanted a shrinking violet, then I wanted a tough girl, then I wanted a strategist. So far, I've settled for a mix of the three. If you guys wanna suggest a first name, feel free. The only criteria is that it must be a Japanese sounding name, for what one would assume to be fairly obvious reasons.

Also, seeing as how this is the start of a new arc, lemme be a shameless whore once again and beg you guys for reviews. Muv Luv is a small fandom, so I don't expect an abundance of feedback, but let me tell you, seeing that review count go up by one when I check on this story's stats always gives me a warm feeling. Also a bit of anxiety, too, because I worry about criticism, but hey, take the salty with the sweet, am I right?

So if you have anything to say, whether it be a flaming sword of hatred or a loving four-part poem, I'd love to hear it. But, all that shaneless whoring aside, I love ya guys. I'm really excited to get writing on the next chapter, and as long as you guys are still here to read, I'll still be here to write.

P.S. I seriously don't know what's making me so sentimental. Maybe I'm drunk on sleep deprivation?


	8. Untitled Arc, C2

**AN**

Welp, looks like I have some things to explain. First and foremost, sorry this took so long to get out, taking an entire week to write a chapter is damn near unacceptable for me. That fact is made even worse because I haven't even started chapter nine yet. I have only one excuse:

Xcom. It's a turn-based strategy game and it's _eating my life._ I tell myself every time I boot up steam, I'm only gon a do one operation and then I'll start writing, and yet, one op turns to three, and three to five, and I _can't stop._ It's so freaking addicting, I just can't even bring myself to stop.

I'm not even going through Writers block. When I actually stop and put myself in front of the word processor, I can puke out paragraphs with little resistance, but then I get this little itch, and I have to go back to shooting aliens and I just-

Ahem. Excuse me. This is my insurance chapter, and I'm just gonna let you read it now.

* * *

The Command Center's twin doors parted with a rusty screech of metal, and Takeru limped his way into the room. Darkness was the first thing his senses registered, followed by the permeating odor of spilled blood. He panicked at first, thinking that he'd been too slow in getting here, that his partner had died because he hadn't been quick enough on his feet, but then he heard a voice. It was weak and feathery, far too light for him to hear over the auto-doors, but in time, he trained his eyes on it's source.

He saw her in the corner of the room, slumped against a dark gray block of machinery and electronics. Her body was collapsed, her breathing shallow, and with eyes only barely open, she watched as he ran into the room.

"Hey, hey, Kurosawa." Takeru whispered frantically as he crouched beside her blood-spattered body, ignoring the intense pain that flared up in his leg. His first instinct was to ask, 'are you going to be okay?', but he quickly cast the thought aside.

"You're gonna be alright. I can fix this." He told her.

"...How?" She croaked hoarsely, her voice was hopeless and forlorn. And weak, too, brought down not only from blood loss but also by her own crushed morale.

 _This doesn't look good. She's bleeding pretty slowly right now, but all that tells me is that she's gone way too long without a bandage._ Takeru thought analytically. _Nothing I can do except apply a tourniquet, and maybe..._ There was the slightest bit of hesitation in his inner voice. _Give her my blood?_

"Shirogane...san?" She breathed again, this time much weaker.

"I can save you, Kurosawa. Don't worry."

Takeru got to work immediately, pulling from his side the leather satchel he'd pilfered not long ago. He gripped both the straps tightly, grateful to see that they didn't yield to his grasp easily, and _pulled_ with as much strength as his flagging body could manage. For several moments, they held steady, but as he redoubled his strength and lowered his grip, they began to split off.

Finally, with sound akin to tearing fabric, the straps broke free and Takeru began to wrap them as tightly as he could around the girl's injuries.

"Talk to me. I don't care what you say, but you need to stay conscious." He told her with all the confidence and compassion of a trained doctor.

"I... I don't know what to say..."

"Doesn't matter." Takeru told her bluntly. "Tell me about your family, about yourself, hell, tell me about your favorite brand of ice cream. Just _talk_ , dammit."

Kurosawa's lips creased weakly into an expression that could have vaguely been called a smile. "I like vanilla."

He smiled down at her. "It's a good flavor. What else do you like?"

"Mystery novels. The ones that have the British guy in them, and his sidekick, and... and all that. Those are my favorite." She told him in the wavering voice of a person on the precipice of death. "And I like cats, but they don't like me back. I always get scratched whenever I try to pet one."

Takeru nodded appreciatively as he tied the leather strap down as tightly as he could. The bleeding was stopped, at least temporarily, but the fact remained that she'd still lost far too much of it to be able to weather the subsequent shock. There was a solution in the fact that he had O+ Type blood, making him a universal donor, but without access to sterilized equipment he might as well just kill her outright to spare her the infection.

But right now, he just had to make sure she didn't pass out on him. If she went under now, there was no telling if he'd be able to revive her at all.

"You're doing good so far, Kurosawa. Keep talking to me. Stay awake."

She swallowed dryly. "Have you ever had a pet before, Shirogane-san?" She asked politely.

First, he thought of Tamase, but she'd been everyone else's 'pet' as much as his. "No, can't say I have. I've never really thought about it, either."

"Oh." She said simply. "That's a shame. I've never had one either."

"Because animals don't like you?" He asked absently as he rooted through his tattered leather satchel.

The girl nodded. "Yeah. I don't know why, either. I mean, aren't I cute enough? Aren't I nice enough? Am I not good enough?"

Takeru laughed gently. "That's not really something you ask a guy, you know. Not in this situation, anyway."

It took a few seconds for the words to register. "A-ah..." She made a noise of embarrassment. There wasn't a blush on her cheeks, however; she'd lost far too much blood to muster that much. "I-it sounds like I just-"

"Mhm." He hummed in agreement as he emptied out the infuriatingly useless satchel's contents.

 _Nothing but ammunition and grenades in here. Not one fucking bandage in sight!_

"You don't care?" She asked in a tiny voice. "You're not... embarrassed?"

"Why would I be? It was an accident." He gave her a once-over with his eyes. "And I don't really think this is the kinda situation where I should be stuttering and blushing, seeing as how you've lost a leg and are getting your blood all over my uniform."

"O-oh, I'm sorry about that." She apologized.

Takeru raised an eyebrow. "Now isn't that strange. In case you forgot, _you're_ the one whose injured. What the hell are you apologizing for?"

"But I got your clothes dirty-"

He sighed in exasperation. "You know, if you weren't literally two steps from death's door, I would slap you right now. Do you honestly think I give a damn about a little bit of blood?"

"No?" She offered hesitantly.

"Exactly." An idea struck him a moment later. He took the satchel and ripped off the leather covering with a knife and pulled out several threads of tough, unidentifiable fabric from underneath.

Leather wrapping was, by and large, a shitty substitute for a gauze roll. However, given his surroundings, Takeru was hard-pressed to find anything else that wasn't blood-soaked, covered in dust, or totally destroyed.

"Alright, Kurosawa, looks like I managed to make something to stop the blood flow. I still have to put it on, though, so you'll need to follow my instructions to the letter, alright?"

She nodded obediently. "Okay, Shirogane-san."

"Thanks. Now lift up your leg." He waited patiently for her to raise the bleeding stump of her right limb into the air. "Okay. Now hold this piece of leather between your teeth, and get ready to bite down when I tell you to." Takeru took a deep breath and held it steady, trying to calm his shaking hands. "Done? Good. I'm going to have to put a fuck-ton of pressure on your wound in a moment, so this is probably going to hurt really bad. I want you to bite down on that leather on the count of three."

Though she paled considerably, Kurosawa nodded.

"Alright. I'm glad you're so cooperative." He braced her leg with his blood-spattered left hand and prepared the makeshift leather bandage with his right. "One." Takeru said decisively.

"Two." He met her gaze steadily, trying to give her what little confidence he could muster.

" _Three!_ " Grunting with a volume that almost bordered shouting, he pushed down on her injury with crushing force.

Instantaneously, nerve endings that had been previously sedated by adrenaline came screaming into life. Fiery agony raced up her body in rolling waves. Her leg jerked upward, but Takeru pushed it back and pinned it against the ground. With dexterous movements befitting a safe-cracker he wound the bandage around her injury and forcibly squeezed shut the severed veins.

He tied the leather covering to her injury with the fabric, wrapping it around the injury and winding the fabric up to the wrapped tourniquet to bind it in place. Tying the wire-like fabric around, he bound her wound shut as best he could. Within moments, the blood stopped draining, and Takeru breathed a sigh of relief.

The hole was plugged, and her condition was stabilized for the time being. Still, the girl was thrashing and moaning, and would have been outright screaming if not for the leather strip between her teeth.

"Hey, hey- _Hey!_ " He shouted, grabbing her attention and bringing her tear-stained eyes to his. "It's okay. The pain's gonna go away real soon, you just need to relax, okay? Thrash around too much and you're going to undo all the work I just did."

She nodded desperately, hinging on every word he said. And miraculously, she slowed and quieted, inch by inch, second by second.

"That's good. Just stay calm, Kurosawa. You're gonna get through this; I'm not going to let you die." He waited several seconds for her pain to lessen. "How do you feel?"

"Not... good..." She gasped, barely choking out the words in between heaving breaths. "It hurts, Shirogane-san..."

Takeru nodded. "Alright, I hear you. I need you to hold steady for a few minutes, I'm going to go look for some painkillers-"

Just before he could stand up, she grabbed his sleeve. Without words, without expression, without anything more than the panicky, desperate look in her amazingly bright eyes, she told him to stay. And with a smile, he sat back down and leaned against the wall.

"I get it. I wouldn't want to be left alone like this either, if the situations were switched." After a few moments, he took his rifle into his lap and began to fiddle with it's inner workings. "Whenever you're ready to move, give me the word. We've still got a base invasion to survive, after all."

For a time, she said nothing. Any intelligible sound she could have made was drowned out by her gasping and panting as she tried desperately to cope with the searing agony in her leg. It was difficult to tell how much time she spent like that, but Takeru gauged somewhere between five and fifteen minutes with his internal clock before she spoke again.

"...thanks." She whispered. "I appreciate it."

"You don't need to thank me, Kurosawa. I already know that you're grateful."

"How?"

Takeru looked over and tapped his forehead. "Call it intuition, I guess. I've always had a knack for dealing with people-" _People of the opposite gender in particular_. "-so I usually have a good grasp on what others are thinking."

"That sounds nice." She muttered, her voice picking up strength.

"What do you mean?"

Kurosawa looked at the ground. "Connecting with people, I mean." She explained, only stopping to shift around uncomfortably. "Understanding them. It's always so hard for me to empathize with other people, and it's even harder to talk with them on a person-to-person basis, you know? It always feels like I'm talking to a mask, and not a human being."

She trained her eyes on him. "I've never really been shy, but I can never get close to others, either. It's just... hard."

Takeru had no words.

Somehow, her voice gained strength. "And yet, here I am, spilling my guts to you, Shirogane-san. In what kind of fucked up world do I speak more words to the person I've known for three hours than the people I've trained with for three years?" She lapsed into silence and looked down at her feet.

Seconds passed them by, the time spent not doing or saying anything, just sitting in companionable silence. Takeru put a hand on the girl's shoulder and gave her a reassuring expression.

"Feel better, now?"

"Yeah. I think so." Kurosawa told him quietly.

"Good. Because we've got a battle to win." Takeru stood to his feet with the aid of his rifle. "Take my hand. I'll carry you to the officer's chair."

"But, your leg, doesn't it hurt?"

Smirking confidently, he waved her off. "Do you honestly think a tiny little thing like a few pulverized bones could ever slow me down?"

She smiled at him, ever so slightly. "I guess that was a stupid question."

"You're damn right it was."

* * *

 _An hour and twenty minutes later_

In a blaze of fire and flame, Mitsuki roared her machine onto a murderous and chaotic warpath. She broke through the enemy's neatly set up line of mortars and tank-artillery with a badly scratched TSF, barreling through jungle-wood and alloyed steel alike with a viciousness and fury that the devil himself would have been hard-pressed to match.

" _Get the fuck outta my way!_ " She shouted at the top of her lungs. _"I'll kill every last one of you bastards!"_ She cried as an enemy TSF charged her from the flank.

Mitsuki gritted her teeth and rolled her machine right, engaging her thrusters and sliding harmlessly past the enemy. Recalculating the very instant he realized he'd missed, the enemy pilot changed direction and charged back ahead. And yet, she was still a step ahead. Before the PB knife had even fully unsheathed itself, she raised her weapon high to parry an overhead strike. She barely even waited to feel the sensation of steel clashing against steel before shooting out her unoccupied left hand and burying it into the center of the enemy TSF.

A spray of blood jetting out onto her Zuikaku's hand told her that she'd ripped directly into the cockpit. With the metal husk of the enemy machine impaled on her arm, she shook her limb and cast it off into the UN complex's shell-shattered west wing. With a satisfying crash, it slammed into the concrete structure and sagged to lifelessness.

Yet, before she'd even finished throwing the dead TSF, her rifle was raised and firing in no time at all. Just before a deadly swarm of lead and depleted uranium could punch through her hull, the disabled machine was thrown and she was moving. A dozen electronic alerts lit up across her board as the heavy armament trucks locked their ordnance onto her machine.

" _Kill me! I dare you!_ " She screamed furiously, burning her thrusters and pulling right as quickly as her TSF would allow.

A line of rocket infantry took positions behind her back. Mitsuki hadn't had time to register their appearance, let alone react, before they let fly a devastating salvo of rockets. They exploded against her hull in an orange-white shower, blackening the paint and biting into her armor. And yet, her machine held steady, no closer to collapse then than it had been moments before.

She reversed around and leveled the lower barrel of her rifle onto the massed infantry. There was no one-liner, no final words, not so much as a spared glance. Just the solid pulling back of one sweat-soaked trigger. A 120mm shell shot from her rifle's barrel at supersonic speeds and slammed into the ground, instantly vaporizing the platoon that had taken position there.

Without hesitation or thought, she soared high into the air and trained her guns back down on the massed enemy force. "No retreat. No surrender. Not for me..." She discharged a roar of imprecise gunfire, only slightly muffled by her armored suit's ear dampeners. "And definitely not for you."

Missiles dropping like rain bombarded her TSF's aerial position. The hail was upon her with no warning and no respite, but Mitsuki only grinned.

A crimson ball of fire enveloped her machine, blazing almost as bright as the sun above. And for several seconds, that was all anyone saw of her.

And yet, as sure as the day would end, Mitsuki survived. She was not just alive, however, but _ecstatic_. A grin, wide and terrifying and looking so damn _natural_ on her features, bloomed to life on her face. Screaming in a mixture of joy and fury, she nose-dived into the enemy force.

The explosion had been devastating, but the anti-laser gel had ensured her overall survival. Her TSF was blackened and charred, and the majority of the armor plating was burnt off. It was this black appearance that the ground troops saw, screaming down toward them like a dark angel of death, bearing a blade in one hand and a half-empty rifle in the other.

Just before she could hit the ground and subsequently die a fiery death, she ejected her cockpit module, suited up into the exoskeleton, and took to the air. The Zuikaku she'd been piloting just moments prior slammed into the earth with a momentous blast, shaking the earth and vaporizing nearly everything on the ground in a fifty meter radius.

Mitsuki's exoskeleton crashed onto the glassed soil. Immediately and without pause, she sprinted recklessly into the enemy's firing line, brandishing a red-hot length of razor-sharp steel and a pair of 36mm shoulder cannons. The enemy force was disoriented, if only temporarily, thus allowing her to cut a swift line through their ranks and punch hard into their central ranks.

Moving with the unnatural speed only her exoskeleton could provide, she darted from man to man, severing flesh and limb in a blazing red dance of steel and lead.

Her movements were impossibly fast and equally difficult to track. At one moment, a man's legs were slashed out from under him by the bluish-gray blue sliding low past his right, and at another, a soldier on the opposite side was split diagonally in two from shoulder to hip. On the right flank, three heads rolled in rapid succession, and on the left, an entire clump of troops were splattered to crimson fragments.

"Don't fuck with me! I'll kill all of you!" Mitsuki shouted gleefully as she danced her deadly tango.

Some distant part of her mind registered the bullets ripping into her flesh and armor. But that distant pain was drowned out under the rolling waves of ecstatic joy coursing through her veins. Mitsuki wheeled around and launched her length of splintered steel like a javelin into the skull of a black-armored soldier. Bending back around she jumped the terrified form of another, ripping out his throat with her bare hands and pulling the knife from his belt.

Not even a second passed before she dashed ahead and impaled a human body, one she couldn't even fully see through the crimson screen of blood splattered over her eyes. Rounds blazed against her back, only a few of them pinging off the metal frame of her exoskeleton. Like a woman possessed, she sprinted ahead erratically and unpredictably, cutting into the infantry's rear-guard.

She slashed out a person's throat, slicing just under the full-face helmet, and pushed the body aside to more easily jump out at whomever she next saw. Seeing it's black outline through the crimson, she grabbed a soldier's arm, pulled it high into the air, and stabbed several times into the vague blur of the subsequently exposed armpit.

It was with a gasp and a scream that the man died. There was no remorse in Mitsuki's emotions when she heard it; nor had there been any other save for mindless and savage joy. She turned and charged in a random direction, eager to kill another.

A hammer-like hand slammed into her face and knocked her back, but she grabbed that hand and pulled it toward her. She stabbed her knife deep into the heart of whomever the arm belonged to, relishing the feeling of parting flesh and the sound of splattering blood. She pulled the body over and around, shielding her however temporarily from a blanket of rounds.

Then, without giving her the slightest moment to rest, an explosive projectile slammed into the back of her shoulder.

The explosion threw her to the ground and vaporized most of her exoskeleton, but Mitsuki was lightning-quick in pulling back her miraculously intact right arm and throwing her knife directly into the grenadier's face. She rolled back to her feet, the action made considerably more awkward now that her suit was destroyed, and pulled another knife from the ground. Soldiers were encircling her from every angle now, much like a troop of hunters would surround a wounded boar.

As if by signal, they all opened fire at once with pistols and rifles. Rounds flew from every direction, but all Mitsuki did was dive low and hard into the nearest body, stabbing to death what little she could reach before the bullets could claim her.

Rounds slammed into her armored back, crushing her bones with pulverizing force. She paid little mind, however, as she threw herself off another eviscerated corpse and into the shattered ground below. Black armored bodies surrounded her from every side, training the barrels of their guns on her body.

"I won't die! Not like this!" She screamed, her voice turning raw and painful.

The guns opened fire on her, sending hundreds of rounds screaming into her body. Mitsuki raised her arm, broken though it was, and pressed the big red button located on her armored suit's wrist. Immediately, the shattered remains of her exoskeleton heated to a cherry-red glow and vibrated tremulously.

The heat was tremendous, and wearing it was almost like being trapped in an oven. Her flesh was searing, boiling, scorching and cooking into an ugly shade of black. Mitsuki hadn't the time to notice, however, before the exoskeleton exploded violently into a brilliant plume of white.

Conveniently, the blast also happened to wipe out the entirety of her impromptu firing squad.

* * *

 _The two of them faced each other from across the steel table, looking down on the sheet of paper. Messily drawn schematics, floor layouts, and diagrams were put neatly in place, painting a clear image of the compound's inner workings. Kurosawa explained the plan, a steely light in her eye and a renewed vitality in her voice._

 _"The goal is to bring this base's internal power source back online. If we can do that, I'll be able to reactivate the guns from here and clean up every hostile inside the base. However, you have a lot of ground to fight through."_

 _She shuffled her papers and brought up a similar-looking map of the compound, although now crisscrossed with bright red circles and slash marks. "The most damaged parts of the compound are the west wing, the north wing, and the TSF launching hangar, not to mention the many cannon shells that have punched through the halls and corridors."_

 _Kurosawa coughed briefly. "Based on that information, I can tell you with absolutely zero certainty that hostiles have infiltrated these particular corridors." She pointed to the primary northern tunnels and it's connected pathways. Bright red scribbles of red filled in nearly the entire west side, as well as substantial portions of the south._

 _"This means that the only route you could take and not get shot to death is the eastern maintenance shaft. You'll have to head there and wind all the way around, hugging the wall closest to the exterior, and sneak past their main force. If you can do that well enough, you'll wind up in the northern atrium."_

 _Takeru frowned. "The map says that the atrium is their main base of operations."_

 _"Yes, that's true, unfortunately." She shuffled her papers again, and brought up a much more eclectic looking diagram of vents and crawlspaces. "The atrium is a large room, and it's got a lot of empty space beneath, around, and above it. Vents. You're going to crawl through these things and push your way back toward the center. Then, from those ventilation shafts, you'll sneak under the hostile force and make your way to the primary substation."_

 _Shuffling back her papers, she brought up her final document, a large schematic of a bright white metal box. "This is the base's main power station. If what I remember from the pre-operation layouts is correct, then the only problem we face is a bunch of dead fuses. There should be replacements somewhere in that room. Repair the box and flip the switch, that should be all it takes to get the power back up and running again. Should be, anyway; I have no idea if the box has sustained any additional damage in the last hour."_

 _He nodded. "Alright. Once I get that box running again, how do I exfiltrate?"_

 _She was quiet for a moment. "I'm sorry, but... you don't." She squeezed her eyes shut, as if expecting an outburst. But when there wasn't one, she explained, "It's going to take me time to get the guns warmed up, so I need you to hold the room and make sure no one blows up that substation before they get done."_

 _Takeru grinned. "Sounds like a suicide mission. I like it."_

 _Kurosawa eyed him for a moment. "Well, that's a silver lining, I suppose. I hope you know that sending you to your death brings me absolutely no joy whatsoever, Shirogane-san."_

 _"It'd be weird if it did." He agreed. "Is that all, Kurosawa-san?"_

 _She nodded. "Yes. That's the long and short of this operation. I hope you have this memorized, because with the communications array losing power, there's no telling if we'll be able to stay in touch once you get moving."_

 _"It's not a problem. I can do this."_

 _Her expression shifted into a smile, however small. "I'll be counting on you then, Shirogane-san. Try not to take any undue risks."_

 _"Tch." Takeru clicked his tongue. "Sounds boring." He turned around and limped toward the exit, his rifle barrel digging into the concrete._

That had been an hour ago.

Now, as he wormed his way through the cobwebbed vents of the atrium, he dearly regretted not picking up a splint or a shinguard or, well, anything. His leg was killing him, almost literally, too, considering the shards of bone moving about and slicing the inside of his limb. Repeatedly banging his pulverized leg against unyielding metal proved to be incredibly painful.

Yet, the searing agony in his legs paled in comparison to the great shock of anxiety he felt as he crawled his way through the vents. With every movement, with every crash of his sweating hands on plated steel, he could feel the presences of the several dozen soldiers literally _inches_ above him. His rational mind told him that there was no way they would notice him, that the concrete above the vent blocked both sight and sound, and yet, he couldn't stop his heart from pounding like a drum.

Takeru couldn't hear them and couldn't see them, and yet, somewhere in his mind, he knew they were above him. He almost wished he hadn't stuck around for Kurosawa's briefing; if he hadn't, he could have safely crawled into these vents without knowing just how many soldiers were above him.

The impenetrable darkness did nothing to alleviate his anxiety, either. He hadn't brought so much as a lighter down into the depths, and that was yet another thing he regretted dearly. Going in, Takeru knew it was going to be dark, and so he'd read over Kurosawa's vent-map three times just to memorize it, but the long shadows of a moonless night were _nothing_ in comparison to this black hell.

Sightless and panicking, every sound he heard was magnified a thousand times to his ears. The scurrying of a creature – whether it was a rat or spider, Takeru didn't know and was equally terrified – and the gentle whisper of moving air, all of it was horribly vibrant to him.

Something brushed against the back of his hand as he pushed forward. He froze, a jolt of fear striking his body rigid. The thing was hard and spiny, moving on the back of his palm with many, many legs. A spider. A very _big_ spider. Takeru went rigid and held both his breath and his body, a renewed feeling of anguished terror in his veins. He knew this was stupid, that something as simple as a spider shouldn't scare him, and yet...

It was the tunnel. Everything was amplified in the tunnel. His fears, the sounds he heard, and most of all, his paranoia... all of it and more was brought to a brand new height of agonizingly exquisite feeling down in this godforsaken tunnel.

 _Getitoffgetitoffgetitoff_ His mind screeched frantically, sending signals to his body that Takeru had to fight tooth and nail to resist. He wasn't entirely sure if this particular one was venomous or not, he couldn't even see it, but on he didn't want to aggravate it on the off chance that it was.

The spider lingered for a few seconds longer, crawling up his arm with the slow and cautious movements of an animal suspecting danger. It was no longer touching his skin, not directly, but he could feel it, he could hear it. The rustling of his cotton uniform as it's legs brushed along the surface, the little impacts of it's dainty legs hitting the surface, and most disturbingly of all, the rubbing together of the many tiny hairs coating it's body.

A spiny leg brushed his cheek, and Takeru bit down on every nerve in his body to keep himself from screaming.

It finally passed, crawling around the side of his face and moving back behind him. He held both his breath and his body several seconds longer, waiting for it to leave entirely. And when the sounds of it's movement, alien and strange and totally unlike anything he'd heard before, passed out of his auditory range, only then did Takeru breathe a sigh of relief and move forward.

"It was just a spider. What the hell are you so scared about, tough guy?" He asked himself, laughing nervously. "Just... a spider."

He grasped out with his hand, now much more hesitantly, and gripped the next bit of steel. Pulling himself forward with a light grunt, he crawled ahead a few more inches. Slowly, steadily, he moved, consulting the map he'd memorized every so often, until he came to a stop under a dim patch of light.

It was only barely there, but after untold time spent in darkness, Takeru was more than glad to see even the thinnest, most watery ray of illumination. It spilled out into the vent from a grate, giving shape to the previously formless black. Cautiously, he looked up through the grate and scanned for anyone who could possibly see him crawling through the vents.

 _All clear._ He thought satisfactorily before crawling ahead.

The substation wasn't far now. The grate was one of the few distinguishing landmarks mentioned on the map, and it told him that he had less than a few dozen meters left to crawl before he'd be rid of the horrific pain and terror this tiny vent had to offer.

With all the suddenness of a thunderclap, an explosion ripped into the west wing. It was significantly louder than anything that had preceded it, almost deafening in it's intensity, and it sent every soldier in the atrium into a dead sprint toward the source. Whatever had hit the compound, it was larger and much more devastating than a mortar shell could ever hope to be.

As the sound of heavy boots sprinting across concrete tiles filled the air, Takeru grinned weakly. It seemed that the gods, whomever or whatever they might have been, were on his side today.

"That's right, you bastards. Run to the explosion. Run fast, far away from here. And don't bother coming back, either."

Takeru redoubled his speed. With the enemy on the run and his objective sitting just a little bit further away, he found that he didn't mind the pain so much anymore. Within seconds, he was standing behind the vent's metal access hatch. Looking in, he noticed precisely one pair of boots, pacing nervously and standing by the door.

 _Thinking of leaving, huh? Well go ahead, big guy. I fuckin' dare ya._

When thirty seconds passed and the man merely continued to pace, Takeru's patience wore thin. At any other time, he wouldn't have hesitated to wait at least a token few minutes, but with a window of opportunity opened – one that could close at any time – he wasn't exactly eager to twiddle around with his thumbs up his ass.

He undid the hatch's screws quickly and dexterously, twisting the metal bits with one hand and readying his pistol with the other. Moments passed, and the sheet of metal fell to the floor loudly. Takeru took precisely half a second to aim before emptying half his clip into the soldier's exposed legs, dropping him to the floor.

Whether, in his final moments, the man was surprised, angry, terrified, or disbelieving at being shot so suddenly, Takeru would never know. When his target collapsed to the ground, his legs literally collapsing under him, he fired the shot as soon as the head blurred into sight. Almost as soon as the conflict had begun, it ended.

Takeru crawled out of the vent covered in cobwebs and rat shit, but otherwise intact. He didn't bother looking at the man he'd just killed, but instead, went directly for the fuse-box. With a flick of the fingers, the latch was undone and the panel swung effortlessly open, revealing the machinery to be relatively intact.

"That's a relief." He breathed a sigh of relief. "All I have to do is find fuses, then."

Of course, there was another matter to attend to first, of course. With the enemy temporarily distracted, there was always a chance they might not even notice the substation going back online at all. In keeping with that, Takeru would have liked it if, instead of coming here and finding a freshly killed corpse, they found a clean room with a lemony scent instead.

He grabbed the corpse by the arms and flipped it over onto it's significantly less bloody back. Then, he dragged it back and stuffed it into the vent he'd just crawled out of, pushing both it's legs in until the entire thing was obscured by darkness. Within a few minutes, the vent's cover was reattached, the blood was soaked up using the discarded jacket of the aforementioned corpse, and the fuse-box was fully restored.

Takeru grinned. "Too easy." He wiped away a sheen of sweat and pulled the breaker switches back and forth. Moments passed, and the substation came back to life not with a roar, but with an electric hum instead.

Experimentally, he brought his transceiver back to his ear and tried to signal Kurosawa. Only a half-moment passed before her voice came in through the earpiece, crisp and clear.

"My board is lighting up green, Shirogane-san. Very good work."

He moved toward the substation's door. "Of course. I aim to please, you know." Laying low and hugging the ground, he looked under the doorway for signs of anyone or anything that could have been listening.

Though of course, if there had been any hostiles in the area, they probably would have barged in earlier, when he was gunning one of their comrades to death.

"Anyway, how long is it gonna take for those guns to finish their heat-cycling?" He asked her absently as he prepared to open the door.

"Not long, actually. Shouldn't take more than two or three minutes." She responded promptly.

"Excellent. I'll contact you when that time comes, then." Takeru snapped off a salute that only he could see, and cut the transmission.

Pushing open the door, he stepped out into the corridor with his gun raised. It was in vain, however, because the entire wing was totally devoid of human activity. Everything that had been here just minutes ago seemed to have left in a hurry.

"It was a pretty big explosion, yeah, but does it really warrant this much-" Another blast, this one even _more_ jarring than the last, rocked the entire complex. His balance shattered, he was thrown to the ground. Takeru gritted his teeth in pain as he fell to the floor, his leg slamming into the concrete with all the force of a sledgehammer.

Biting back a scream, he braced himself against the wall as hard as he could, grabbing his knee and biting down on nothing at all. Like an earthquake, the entire complex trembled precariously, small bits of concrete and dust falling from the ceiling. The doors rattled in their frames, the walls rattled with the unsteady noise of collapse, and every loose object nearby began to shift around.

It ended almost as soon as it began.

Takeru, however, had no such luck. His leg was screaming in horrific agony, his mind a blur of crimson and white. Further and further, the pain drove him against the winding edge of insanity. He held his breath, fearing that if he didn't, he might end up crying and screeching like a banshee.

Speaking in tense whispers, he told himself words of power over and over again, trying to keep his mind intact. "I can take this. I'm not going die. This little isn't going to kill me."

Dimly, over the soundless wave of his own agony, he heard the defensive guns cycling into life. Their targeting mechanisms looked him over once, identified him as friendly, and moved on. The same could not be said for the hostiles that had infiltrated the compound. A collective roar of gunfire filled the base, tearing open every single unprepared figure wandering the halls.

The gunfire started and stopped in ten seconds. That was all it took for the entirety of the invading force to die.

Takeru, if he hadn't been busy fighting back tears of pain, would have cheered.

* * *

 **AN**

Okay, done and done. Don't got much to say here, other than I should probably start writing chapter nine. And I will, I suppose, but I can't see myself doing anything productive in the near future. Not until Xcom gets beaten again for the umpteenth time. Seriously, steam says I've logged six hundred hours on that game.

Review! Let's respond to it, eh?

 **Bastion:** Yeah, I've noticed that too. A fair number of these Muv-Luv fics either die early with only ten or twenty thousand words, or get boring/annoying after a colossally strong first few chapters. Hopefully I can avoid that and become and outlier, but, I suppose only time will tell.


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